Revivalists: Marketing the Gospel in English Canada, 1884-1957 9780773560093

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revivalists

m c gill-queen’s studies in the history of religion Volumes in this series have been supported by the Jackman Foundation of Toronto. series two In memory of George Rawlyk Donald Harman Akenson, Editor 1 Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal, 1640–1665 Patricia Simpson 2 Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience Edited by G.A. Rawlyk 3 Infinity, Faith, and Time Christian Humanism and Renaissance Literature John Spencer Hill 4 The Contribution of Presbyterianism to the Maritime Provinces of Canada Edited by Charles H.H. Scobie and G.A Rawlyk 5 Labour, Love, and Prayer Female Piety in Ulster Religious Literature, 1850–1914 Andrea Ebel Brozyna 6 The Waning of the Green Catholics, the Irish, and Identity in Toronto, 1887–1922 Mark G. McGowan 7 Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900 John-Paul Himka 8 Good Citizens British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870–1918 James G. Greenlee and Charles M. Johnston 9 The Theology of the Oral Torah Revealing the Justice of God Jacob Neusner 10 Gentle Eminence A Life of Cardinal Flahiff P. Wallace Platt

11 Culture, Religion, and Demographic Behaviour Catholics and Lutherans in Alsace, 1750–1870 Kevin McQuillan 12 Between Damnation and Starvation Priests and Merchants in Newfoundland Politics, 1745–1855 John P. Greene 13 Martin Luther, German Saviour German Evangelical Theological Factions and the Interpretation of Luther, 1917–1933 James M. Stayer 14 Modernity and the Dilemma of North American Anglican Identities, 1880–1950 William H. Katerberg 15 The Methodist Church on the Prairies, 1896–1914 George Emery 16 Christian Attitudes Towards the State of Israel Paul Charles Merkley 17 A Social History of the Cloister Daily Life in the Teaching Monasteries of the Old Regime Elizabeth Rapley 18 Households of Faith Family, Gender, and Community in Canada, 1760–1969 Edited by Nancy Christie 19 Blood Ground Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853 Elizabeth Elbourne

20 A History of Canadian Catholics Gallicanism, Romanism, and Canadianism Terence J. Fay

31 W. Stanford Reid An Evangelical Calvinist in the Academy A. Donald MacLeod

21 The View from Rome Archbishop Stagni’s 1915 Reports on the Ontario Bilingual Schools Question Edited and translated by John Zucchi

32 A Long Eclipse The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920–1970 Catherine Gidney

22 The Founding Moment Church, Society, and the Construction of Trinity College William Westfall

33 Forkhill Protestants and Forkhill Catholics, 1787–1858 Kyla Madden

23 The Holocaust, Israel, and Canadian Protestant Churches Haim Genizi 24 Governing Charities Church and State in Toronto’s Catholic Archdiocese, 1850–1950 Paula Maurutto 25 Anglicans and the Atlantic World High Churchmen, Evangelicals, and the Quebec Connection Richard W. Vaudry 26 Evangelicals and the Continental Divide The Conservative Protestant Subculture in Canada and the United States Sam Reimer

34 For Canada’s Sake Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s Gary R. Miedema 35 Revival in the City The Impact of American Evangelists in Canada, 1884–1914 Eric R. Crouse 36 The Lord for the Body Religion, Medicine, and Protestant Faith Healing in Canada, 1880–1930 James Opp 37 Six Hundred Years of Reform Bishops and the French Church, 1190–1789 J. Michael Hayden and Malcolm R. Greenshields

27 Christians in a Secular World The Canadian Experience Kurt Bowen

38 The Missionary Oblate Sisters Vision and Mission Rosa Bruno-Jofré

28 Anatomy of a Seance A History of Spirit Communication in Central Canada Stan McMullin

39 Religion, Family, and Community in Victorian Canada The Colbys of Carrollcroft Marguerite Van Die

29 With Skilful Hand The Story of King David David T. Barnard

40 Michael Power The Struggle to Build the Catholic Church on the Canadian Frontier Mark G. McGowan

30 Faithful Intellect Samuel S. Nelles and Victoria University Neil Semple

41 The Catholic Origins of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, 1931–1970 Michael Gauvreau

42 Marguerite Bourgeoys and the Congregation of Notre Dame, 1665–1700 Patricia Simpson

44 Revivalists Marketing the Gospel in English Canada, 1884–1957 Kevin Kee

43 To Heal a Fractured World The Ethics of Responsibility Jonathan Sacks series one G.A. Rawlyk, Editor 1 Small Differences Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, 1815–1922 An International Perspective Donald Harman Akenson

9 A Sensitive Independence Canadian Methodist Women Missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881–1925 Rosemary R. Gagan

2 Two Worlds The Protestant Culture of Nineteenth-Century Ontario William Westfall

10 God’s Peoples Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster Donald Harman Akenson

3 An Evangelical Mind Nathanael Burwash and the Methodist Tradition in Canada, 1839–1918 Marguerite Van Die

11 Creed and Culture The Place of English-Speaking Catholics in Canadian Society, 1750–1930 Terrence Murphy and Gerald Stortz, editors

4 The Dévotes Women and Church in SeventeenthCentury France Elizabeth Rapley 5 The Evangelical Century College and Creed in English Canada from the Great Revival to the Great Depression Michael Gauvreau 6 The German Peasants’ War and Anabaptist Community of Goods James M. Stayer 7 A World Mission Canadian Protestantism and the Quest for a New International Order, 1918–1939 Robert Wright 8 Serving the Present Age Revivalism, Progressivism, and the Methodist Tradition in Canada Phyllis D. Airhart

12 Piety and Nationalism Lay Voluntary Associations and the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850–1895 Brian P. Clarke 13 Amazing Grace Studies in Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States George Rawlyk and Mark A. Noll, editors 14 Children of Peace W. John McIntyre 15 A Solitary Pillar Montreal’s Anglican Church and the Quiet Revolution Joan Marshall 16 Padres in No Man’s Land Canadian Chaplains and the Great War Duff Crerar

17 Christian Ethics and Political Economy in North America A Critical Analysis of U.S. and Canadian Approaches P. Travis Kroeker 18 Pilgrims in Lotus Land Conservative Protestantism in British Columbia, 1917–1981 Robert K. Burkinshaw 19 Through Sunshine and Shadow The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Evangelicalism, and Reform in Ontario, 1874–1930 Sharon Cook 20 Church, College, and Clergy A History of Theological Education at Knox College, Toronto, 1844–1994 Brian J. Fraser 21 The Lord’s Dominion The History of Canadian Methodism Neil Semple

22 A Full-Orbed Christianity The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada, 1900–1940 Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau 23 Evangelism and Apostasy The Evolution and Impact of Evangelicals in Modern Mexico Kurt Bowen 24 The Chignecto Covenanters A Regional History of Reformed Presbyterianism in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 1827–1905 Eldon Hay 25 Methodists and Women’s Education in Ontario, 1836–1925 Johanne Selles 26 Puritanism and Historical Controversy William Lamont

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Revivalists Marketing the Gospel in English Canada, 1884–1957

kevin kee

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston · London · Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2006 isbn-13: 978-07735-3022-5 isbn-10: 0-7735-3022-3 (cloth) isbn-13: 978-07735-3023-2 isbn-10: 0-7735-3023-1 (paper) Legal deposit second quarter 2006 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for our publishing activities.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Kee, Kevin B. (Kevin Bradley), 1969– Revivalists : marketing the gospel in English Canada, 1884–1957 / Kevin Kee. (McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two ; 44) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-07735-3022-5 isbn-10: 0-7735-3022-3 (bnd.) isbn-13: 978-07735-3023-2 isbn-10: 0-7735-3023-1 (pbk.) 1. Evangelists – Canada – History. 2. Revivals – Canada – History. 3. Evangelicalism – Canada – History. i. Title. ii. Series. bv3777.c3k44 2006 269.2’092’271 c2005-907162-1 Typeset in Palatino 10/12 by Infoscan Collette, Quebec City

To Anne-Marie

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Contents

Acknowledgments Illustrations

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Introduction 3 1 A Night at the Theatre: Hugh Crossley, John Hunter, and the Marketing of Late Nineteenth-Century Mainstream Protestant Revivalism 13 2 “Anything at all to get a crowd”: Oswald J. Smith and Fundamentalist Revivalism between the Wars 53 3 Reflecting “the distinctive character of the age”: Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group in Canada, 1932–1934 96 4 “In tune with the times”: Charles Templeton and Post-World War II Revivalism 143 Epilogue 188 Notes 195 Bibliography 245 Index 265

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Acknowledgments

I was a third-year undergraduate when I met with George Rawlyk to discuss my essay on Canadian Methodist revivalists Hugh Crossley and John Hunter. They would be great subjects for a research paper, he agreed, but not just a paper – some day a book as well. I left his office bemused, but in the end, he was right. George Rawlyk inspired me to be a historian. Marguerite Van Die and Jane Errington showed me what it was to be a good one. They were my doctoral thesis advisors, but paragons of scholarship and teaching as well. My research on revivalists in Canada was facilitated and enhanced by kind people at several institutions; special thanks to the staff of the United Church of Canada/Victoria University Archives and the Billy Graham Center Archives. John Hull, former pastor of The Peoples Church, Toronto, provided access to the church’s holdings. The late Charles Templeton granted me several interviews and made available his collection of materials related to his career as an evangelist. His wife, Madeleine Templeton, gave me permission to use photographs from Charles’s collection. Ingrid Franzon generously made available the photograph of Frank Buchman. The staff at McGill-Queen’s University Press guided me along the path of publication with unfailing good humour. Thanks to John Zucchi for encouraging me in the early going, Joan McGilvray for keeping me on track, and Kate Merriman for expertly guiding me through to the end. Thanks also to the anonymous readers for their insightful responses to the manuscript. This book was written with the financial assistance of the Department of History and the School

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of Graduate Studies at Queen’s University, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Friends and colleagues in Kingston and Montreal were a constant source of encouragement. At Queen’s, Jamey Carson provided a model as teacher and researcher, and Gary Miedema shared the triumphs and tribulations of graduate study. Bobby Lee and Chris Tan dragged me out of the office and into the gym; Kenneth Hirsch ensured that my plate and glass were full; for these and many other aspects of our friendships I am grateful. At McGill, Brian Young, Desmond Morton, and Anthony Pare inspired me with their combination of scholarship and public engagement. My family deserves the last word. My parents’ integrity, generosity, and compassion embody true religion; they influenced my interest in revivalism in more ways than one. My in-laws exemplify the same ideals. Dan Shea took a keen interest in this book, and his unrivalled eye for detail and encyclopedic knowledge of punctuation and grammar rescued me from sundry syntactic predicaments; Diane Shea rescued our little family from literal crises. Finally, this thesis is dedicated to Anne-Marie. This study began as we were getting to know one another; several years later, with Jacob and Kathleen, it draws to a close. If Anne-Marie received the thanks she deserves, these acknowledgments would run several volumes. While she has not shared my passion for the history of religious change in Canada, she has been the source of happiness beyond it; in that way she has been a vital contributor. St. Catharines March, 2005

Hugh Crossley and John Hunter, ca. 1900 (Courtesy United Church of Canada/Victoria University Archives, Toronto, 76.001P/2932 N)

The new, theatre-inspired sanctuary of the Bridge Street Methodist Church, Belleville, Ontario, prior to Crossley and Hunter’s arrival in 1888 (Courtesy United Church of Canada/Victoria University Archives, Toronto, 92.141P/2)

Oswald J. Smith, 1929 (Courtesy Billy Graham Center Archives)

Frank Buchman, 1933 (Courtesy Ingrid Franzon)

Smith, his choir and his orchestra, assembled for a radio broadcast in 1934 (Courtesy Billy Graham Center Archives)

Toronto Youth for Christ rally, Maple Leaf Gardens (Courtesy Madeleine Templeton)

Templeton on stage for Youth for Christ (Courtesy Madeleine Templeton)

Charles and Connie Templeton (Courtesy Madeleine Templeton)

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Introduction

In 1888, a small-town Ontario journalist observed that “a stranger would have been led to ask the question … what is going on to-night in the city. Are Booth and Barrett here?”1 He was referring to Edwin Booth, billed as “the Hope of the living Drama,” and Lawrence Barrett, celebrated in the United States as “our greatest tragedian,” two of the continent’s biggest theatrical stars. The previous year they had combined their considerable talents to stage several Shakespearean classics, including Julius Caesar, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice, and bring culture to the hinterlands.2 The celebrity actors created a stir wherever they went, but they were not the cause for commotion on this particular evening. The event in question was not a play at the local theatrical showcase but a revival service at the town’s Methodist church, conducted by the renowned Canadian evangelists Hugh Crossley and John Hunter. At the end of the nineteenth century, Crossley and Hunter drew crowds with a form of Protestant melodrama that featured dramatic stories and songs. They deliberately borrowed from one of the era’s most popular entertainment forms in an attempt to draw Canadians to their message of sin and salvation. On this evening, and on many others, this strategy proved an unqualified success. As the reporter implied, the evangelistic meeting and a theatrical play held much in common. Crossley and Hunter’s revivalism marked the beginning of an approach to marketing evangelism that would predominate in Canada until the middle of the next century. Crossley retired in the 1920s and moved from the pulpit to the pew, occasionally attending the revival

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meetings of evangelist Oswald J. Smith. In an era of multiplying entertainment options, Smith drew crowds to his traditional gospel message by featuring a variety of attractions, such as slide shows narrated with exciting stories of his travels to exotic destinations. A few years later, during the chaos and confusion of the Great Depression, Canadian cities hosted revivals led by American evangelist Frank Buchman and his Oxford Group. In an attempt to attract middle- and upper-class English-speaking Canadians to their message of conversion, Buchman and the Group held their meetings in the country’s best hotels and used the language of science to promote Christian living. In the 1940s, Toronto evangelist Charles Templeton drew on the style of Hollywood to interest young people in the gospel. During the next decade, Templeton altered his strategy and adopted a more refined approach in order to attract adults to a conversion message. He traded his glow-in-the dark socks for a business suit, and jazz for choral works by Handel and Bach. The primary goal of each of these evangelists was to bring Canadians into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. But how could revivalists convince men and women to give up their leisure time to attend revivals and hear this message? Crossley and Hunter, Smith, Buchman, and Templeton discovered that the most effective way to attract Englishspeaking Canadians was by drawing on the strategies of contemporary entrepreneurs of commercial culture. The evangelists tried to make religion personally relevant to their audiences, a technique used in some forms of entertainment and advertisements in the press. Crossley and Hunter, for instance, patterned their services on the theatre, one of the most popular entertainments of the late nineteenth century. The evangelists’ use of contemporary cultural forms for religious purposes is one of the untold stories of Canadian religious history. From our vantage point, we tend to think of religion as static and set apart from the world. Signs of the secular in the sacred, such as theatrical elements in a revival service, are seen as evidence of religious loss. But this history of revivals in Canada, and especially in Ontario, will show that there is another way to interpret these events and that aspects of the secular in the sacred can be seen as evidence of Christianity’s continued attempts to speak to the concerns of the present. It is my hope that the following pages will show how, by adjusting their methods to the style of the day, evangelists helped contribute to the vitality of Canadian Protestantism into the middle of the twentieth century. The revivals of Crossley and Hunter, Oswald J. Smith, Frank Buchman, and Charles Templeton created a considerable stir among their contemporaries. Today, however, we know relatively little about these

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men and the religious events they organized. Instead, much of the history of religious change in Canada in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been devoted to the churches. During this period, Canada’s churches were led by learned theologians who crafted religious doctrines and practices. Their teachings were expressed in a distinctive language that enabled the assembly to talk about the divine and to distinguish itself from other churches and society in general. But the churches were not purely religious communities; as much as women and men joined churches to encounter the divine, they also joined to meet with others. Thus, on both a metaphysical and social level, churches provided their members with a refuge from the world outside.3 Sometimes the churches embarked on special campaigns to engage those around them. Revivals, usually outside formal church structures but often endorsed by them, were organized to reach those who sensed a spiritual void in their lives but lacked a religious home base. Revivals were temporary created spaces – places of potential transition from a former life of sin to a future life of righteousness – organized for the express purpose of bringing men and women into a relationship with the divine. The evangelists’ message was simple: people’s problems were the result of their spiritual failings. Happiness could be found in a renewed connection with God, but this required more than tacit consent – what was needed was a decision. This was the “conversion” promoted by the evangelists and sometimes professed by penitents, the defining ritual of evangelical Christianity.4 Inherent in conversion was a promise to replace old habits with a revived religion that expressed itself in traditional moral behaviour and in a life of service to God and the community. The context for this decision was the revival service. The focus of these events was not the spiritual life of the community, but of the individual. The men who led revivals (and they were almost always men) were not pastoral, nurturing types. They were entrepreneurs in religion whose sole focus was to bring as many Canadians as possible into a personal relationship with the divine. The genius of their message lay in its simplicity. Where church leaders elucidated doctrines, the evangelists posed a simple question. In fact, in an attempt to appeal to a mass audience, the evangelists blurred distinctive church doctrines and avoided religious terminology. Instead, they expressed spiritual concepts in a language that could be understood by all. The words they used were drawn from what their listeners had in common: the stuff of everyday life. In short, in order to draw strangers to meetings where they could hear a simple message on conversion, expressed in a language accessible to all, the evangelists had to take their cues from the outside world.

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Revivals had been a feature of English-Canadian life since the late eighteenth century, when Henry Alline preached and sang a pietistic gospel that sparked Nova Scotia’s “First Great Awakening.”5 Following Alline, American evangelists such as Nathan Bangs and William Case, and later James Caughey and Phoebe Palmer, travelled north of the border to lead revivals in several centres. According to one historian, these religious leaders “openly challenged the status quo” and “frontally attacked the values of contemporary society” as they preached their message of conversion.6 But by the late nineteenth century, where this study begins, that was no longer the case. Revivalism was dramatically transformed because the world around it was changing. According to a recent assessment, the late nineteenth century marked a profound break with a settler past and ushered in an age of “print-capitalism.” As Canada changed from an agrarian to an increasingly industrialized society, men and women began to view the world around them in an altogether new way. Time now had monetary value – it could be “saved” or “spent” – and space, which had previously been limited to the local community, was expanded by a series of technical innovations, including the telegraph, railway, and daily newspaper. The rise of mass media, intimately connected to the expansion of advertising, brought Canadians into contact with a host of consumer goods that promised happiness. Lives which had once been measured by region and ethnicity were now defined by wages, property values, and prices.7 Religion had to respond to this new reality, and for evangelists in the business of marketing the gospel, the choice was clear. Crossley and Hunter, Smith, Buchman, and Templeton drew on forms of this increasingly commercialized culture to ensure that Protestantism remained relevant to English-speaking Canadians. This impulse to adjust the gospel was in keeping with the adaptive capacity of Christianity, which has allowed it to expand for the past two thousand years. Christianity has persisted in North American life, according to one observer, because it has undergone a “restructuring,” responding to and shaping individuals’ responses to societal change.8 Though this form of religion has not controlled cultural change, neither has it been overwhelmed by the environment – religious leaders’ options have been limited by their surroundings. Surveying American nineteenth and twentieth-century history, Lawrence Moore has concluded that popular religious leaders had to energetically enter into the marketplace of culture in order to have a major impact. For Moore, the choice was clear, because “either religion keeps up with cultural life or it has no importance.”9 In an attempt to appeal to their audiences,

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religious leaders working within a consumer society commodified religion – they packaged it in the shape of commodities (evangelistic services, for example, that were made to resemble theatrical shows) and used commercial techniques of advertising and publicity.10 In this way, they were able to present their message in new ways congruent with the needs of people in changing socio-economic circumstances.11 In wrapping religion in the packaging of commercial culture, did revivalists turn the ineffable into the mundane, as some historians have suggested?12 Some of the evangelists’ resources – Crossley and Hunter’s melodramatic stories, for instance – might appear to be inherently “worldly,” i.e. not overtly “religious” in tone, and their use viewed as evidence of religious loss. But the revivalists’ use of ostensibly “worldy” techniques did not necessarily mean that their “religion” suffered. Historians of religion in Canada have sometimes worked with “either/or” concepts such as “secular” and “sacred,” while the people that they have studied lived in what one scholar has called a “both/and” world.13 Examining religion in its context, we see that the mixing of the sacred and profane was commonplace. In her path-breaking study of late nineteenth-century small-town Ontario, Lynn Marks traces the manner in which Christian belief and action took place within the context of other aspects of experience like class and gender.14 Religious piety did not exist in isolation; it shaped and was shaped by its surroundings. In the pages that follow, we will encounter the complicated reality of revivalism in Canada, a form of created religious experience that was constantly being transformed as each evangelist sought to capture and hold a fluid audience long enough to deliver his message of conversion. In nineteenth-century English Canada, the relationship between the churches and the state made revivals a central component of church survival. The churches were voluntary institutions; after the secularization of the clergy reserves in 1854, no denomination received government support.15 The separation of church and state in English Canada was a pivotal event in the process of modernization.16 From this point forward, Protestant leaders could no longer rely on the material support of the government; if churches were to succeed, religious leaders would have to earn whatever influence they hoped to exercise. In the United States, disestablishment coupled with republican ideology led to a democratized free-for-all among competing religious groups. In English-speaking Canada, Protestants responded to the new situation not by competing with one another, but by working together. While the churches did not agree on all aspects of their mission, their similarities outnumbered their differences, so that

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by the 1880s the major mainstream Protestant denominations (the Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Baptists) shared a national scope and purpose: to make their country “God’s Dominion” from sea to sea. De-emphasizing denominational differences in doctrine, religious leaders emphasized morality, seeking to make the lifestyle of all Canadians and the law itself conform to their standards.17 They achieved significant success. During what has been called the “Evangelical Century,” the churches enjoyed the effective equivalent of establishment. A glance at a city skyline offered proof of the social standing of the Protestant denominations. Despite its reputation as Ontario’s centre of commerce and industry, late nineteenth-century Toronto was most remarkable for its apparently sanctified skyline. As a contemporary historian observed in 1884, “One of the titles of the Queen City of English Canada is ‘The City of Churches,’ a name whose appropriateness can be seen by any visitor who watches the heaven-pointing spires that rise from every part of Toronto, and form a leading feature of our city.”18 Under the impressive spires, however, cracks appeared in the foundations of church power. In the late nineteenth century, where this study begins, the most notable challenges to Protestant hegemony were modern science and the historical criticism of the Bible. According to some historians, these developments overwhelmed leading English-Canadian theologians and church leaders, so that by the middle of the twentieth century, many had relinquished their traditional faith.19 Others scholars, however, contend that church leaders responded imaginatively and constructively to intellectual and social change. The cracks were always appearing and being repaired as the ground beneath the church shifted – adjustments could be made to ensure that the foundation remained strong.20 How did leaders of movements of popular religion21 respond to these and other challenges and opportunities? In what follows, I examine revivalism from a variety of angles, addressing several questions directly: Who were the men who led these meetings? What were their basic messages? What methods did they use to draw Canadians to their messages? How did they go about organizing their evangelistic meetings? What was the reaction of the press? Finally, what do we know about those who attended these meetings? With regard to the last question, the manner in which those in attendance received the message and responded to the methods needs attention if we are to fully understand the process of religious change in Canada. But the development of that thesis is beyond the scope of this study. Instead, in the pages that follow, I attempt to understand the relationship between the marketing and vitality of religion by examining the evangelists.

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Part 1 focuses on Hugh Crossley and John Hunter, who worked on behalf of the Protestant mainstream churches. Their first priority was to communicate a traditional gospel message of repentance, conversion, and holy living. The evangelists wanted to reach all classes and ages; in order to succeed, they drew on the strategies of the theatre, a leisure form popular among Canadians from all walks of life. Marketing themselves as “actor preachers,” they successfully competed with purveyors of Canada’s nascent commercial culture by organizing entertaining meetings in which they were the featured celebrities. Crossley and Hunter’s use of the forms of the commercial culture of their day helped further their goal of converting late nineteenth-century English-speaking Canadians. Anonymous railroad navvies and famous politicians, young and old, rich and poor, attended their services. Some professed a change of heart and then applied Christian morality to their daily lives, bringing Canada closer to Crossley and Hunter’s dream of a Christian nation. The evangelists’ twenty-six-year career spanned a period of significant social transformation in English-speaking Canadian society. The mainstream denominations were well positioned to address these issues, but the churches were also faced with internal challenges, not the least of which was the fracturing of the nineteenth-century evangelical Protestant consensus. Two different wings were emerging by the early 1900s. On one side were the powerful mainstream churches, which represented the majority of Canadian Protestants. They selectively accepted the discoveries of Darwinism and the new historical criticism of the Bible and drew on modern ideas to reinterpret older evangelical doctrines, adjusting Christian belief to the norms of early twentieth-century culture. On the other side of the Protestant divide were the new self-consciously sectarian fundamentalist, holiness, and Pentecostal assemblies, a distinct minority of churchgoers. They argued that the theology that had resulted from the accommodation of Darwinism and biblical criticism had eroded traditional doctrines of sin and salvation and had substituted little in the way of hard truth. These conservatives responded to the new theology with a renewed emphasis on what they believed were traditional nineteenthcentury doctrines. Prominent among the latter group was Oswald J. Smith, who organized a series of crusades that resulted in the organization of his Peoples Church in Toronto in 1928. His revivalism is the focus of Part 2. Smith preached repentance, conversion, and personal holiness – a gospel message that shared significant points of contact with that of his evangelistic heroes Crossley and Hunter. But where the nineteenth-century revivalists had been optimistic that Protestant belief could accommodate modern intellectual insights, the events of

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subsequent decades had made Smith hostile to scientific discoveries. And where Crossley and Hunter had enjoyed the support of newspaper editors, businessmen, and politicians, Smith felt marginalized by “respectable” society. This position led Smith to strike out boldly on his own, independent of the mainstream denominations. As the leader of a fledgling church, Smith could not take his authority for granted. While his message was rooted in the past, his methods drew upon the latest in commercial entertainment. In an age characterized by multiplying leisure options, Smith’s evangelistic services featured movies and free concerts and relied on extensive advertising and the occasional controversy to attract attention. These forms of entertainment were geared to appeal to middle- and lower-class urban men and women, and some of these Torontonians responded by coalescing around the evangelist into a church, school, missionary society, and publishing house. Smith’s assembly grew from a fledgling flock to one of Canada’s first mega-churches, which, somewhat atypically for institutions centred on one person, survives to this day. Smith’s adoption and adaptation of cultural forms strengthened his mission in two ways: first, by attracting audiences to his services where they could hear his message and perhaps undergo conversion, and second, by offering those already converted a place where they could experience Christianized forms of entertainment. They could then emerge from his church rejuvenated and ready to help Smith spread the gospel. Just a few blocks away, evangelist Frank Buchman was also marketing religion to Torontonians in the early 1930s, though in ways different from Smith. Part 3 addresses Buchman’s work from 1932 to 1934, when he and his Oxford Group led evangelistic campaigns across the country. Like Smith, Buchman’s primary objective was to bring women and men to experience a conversion – what he called a “life change.” But where Smith had appealed to the lower and middle classes, Buchman aimed to attract Canada’s elites. He was convinced that, once converted, the most influential members of society could end the Depression and launch a world-wide revival. In typical revivalist fashion, he geared his presentation to his audience, holding his meetings in the ballrooms of the country’s finest hotels. Prayer and bible study were mixed with tennis and fine dining. No hymns were sung, no prayers were spoken. Instead, Buchman and the members of the Oxford Group drew on new scientific and intellectual developments – wrapping much of their message in the language of psychology – to encourage others to experience a conversion to Christ. This presentation of the gospel made religion and modernity seem compatible, and some English-speaking Canadians were

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drawn to faith in a Christianity that seemed to speak to their educated minds as well as their hearts. The 1940s witnessed the emergence of another dynamic religious entrepreneur in Toronto, evangelist and pastor Charles Templeton. Like his friend and colleague Oswald J. Smith, Templeton preached what observers called an “old-fashioned gospel” emphasizing repentance, conversion, and holy living. But in contrast to Smith, who had felt marginalized during a time of declining respect for mass evangelism, Templeton was buoyed by the return of many Canadians to the verities of the past. The 1940s were marked by an increasing consciousness of youth, and Templeton made this demographic the focus of his evangelism. To attract those in their teens and twenties to his services, the handsome, worldly wise revivalist drew on the latest fads in entertainment and conducted fast-paced religious extravaganzas featuring acrobats, jive-talking preachers, and jazz music. Like Canadian evangelists before him, Templeton held close ties to likeminded American colleagues. This time, however, American evangelists – men such as Billy Graham – looked to a Canadian for leadership and inspiration. Templeton’s appropriation of cultural forms for religious purposes drew audiences to exciting meetings that were as much fun as any secular entertainment offered by commercial popular culture. Thus was Templeton able to reach Toronto’s youth with his message of repentance, conversion, and Christian living. In the late 1940s, Templeton left revivalism briefly to study at Princeton Theological Seminary. He re-emerged in 1951 as the lead evangelist of the United Church of Canada. The mid-point of the twentieth-century marked an apparent renaissance in Canadian religion, and the most powerful Protestant denomination marshalled its substantial resources and considerable prestige for the sake of Templeton’s evangelistic campaigns. The message that the evangelist delivered on behalf of the church was in many ways similar to that which he had preached while with Youth for Christ: repentance, conversion, and Christian living. The tone, however, was different: Templeton took advantage of a renewed respect for religion in the academy, sprinkling his sermons with quotations drawn from the leading intellectuals of the day. In addition, he adjusted his methods to ensure success among his new audience. In an effort to appeal to established middle- and upper-class adults who were enjoying the fruits of prosperity, he substituted classical music for jazz, and the quiet techniques of modern salesmanship for jive-talk. It was a successful formula; from 1950 to 1955 audiences in towns and cities across English-speaking Canada responded positively to Templeton’s evangelism. They needed a gospel message that spoke to the modern

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situation, that could operate in the intellectual environment in which they lived. Templeton’s Christ seemed to address the issues they faced and enable them to make Christianity a vital part of their dayto-day experience. Templeton’s career in evangelism forms the basis of Part 4. To demonstrate that Protestant Christianity was relevant to ordinary Canadians, each of these evangelists adopted contemporary methods for selling his message of conversion, drawing on all the resources of his age. In the late nineteenth century, where this phenomenon emerged in English Canada, the excitement generated by the arrival of the country’s premier evangelists was hard to distinguish from the enthusiasm that greeted the continent’s most celebrated actors. This approach to the marketing of revivalism was central to the success of Crossley and Hunter and to those evangelists who would follow them.

1 A Night at the Theatre Hugh Crossley, John Hunter, and the Marketing of Late Nineteenth-Century Mainstream Protestant Revivalism

On a Sunday evening in September, 1889, evangelists Hugh Crossley and John Hunter opened their campaign in Kingston, Ontario. Hunter stepped behind the pulpit of Sydenham Street Methodist Church and announced his hope that “Jesus Christ would by some means reach the hearts that were as yet strangers to Him.” During his sermon, Crossley told the audience that “they could not be happy without coming to Christ.” His partner took over again and appealed to the men and women in the audience to make a conversion. As a result, according to a front page article in the Kingston Daily British Whig, “quite a number found their way to the altar.”1 Crossley and Hunter’s primary goal was to bring about in their listeners a conversion to Christ. At each of their meetings they encouraged people to repent of their sins, experience a conversion, and live day-to-day in a manner pleasing to God, avoiding such secular diversions as the theatre. While the message was traditional, the methods used to spread that message were unabashedly modern. While Crossley and Hunter criticized the stage, they borrowed heavily from the theatre. Their campaigns were carefully planned, tailored to the desires of the particular audience, and then repeated six weeks later. Their services featured Hunter’s jokes and dramatic stories like “The Heavenly Railroad,” a tale of a young girl who boarded a train, hoping it would carry her to heaven where she would find her dead mother. Crossley delivered “song sermons”: “Negro spirituals,” if the mood was light, or the lament of a dead child, such as “Papa, come this way,” which inevitably brought the

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audience to tears. The evangelists crafted themselves as celebrities and bore all the trappings of this status. This expression of popular religion – a combination of Protestant Christianity and entertainment – proved highly successful in cities and towns throughout Canada and the United States. In the weeks that followed their opening service in Kingston, for instance, over one thousand men and women professed a conversion to Christ. By drawing from commercial culture in general, and the theatre in particular, the evangelists furthered their goal of spreading the message of conversion.

the evangelists: hugh crossley and john hunter Hugh Thomas Crossley was born on an isolated homestead in King Township, in present-day Ontario, on 19 November 1850. When he was seventeen, a visit to a Methodist camp meeting changed his life. After several days of attending the revival, Crossley was converted. He left no account of the experience, but his endeavours in the months and years that followed spoke volumes. Crossley spent the rest of his life trying to bring about in others the conversion that he had experienced.2 Attending Normal School in Toronto, he received a first-class certificate at nineteen and began teaching in Culloden, Ontario. At the same time, he was appointed a local preacher with the Methodist Church. In 1878, he left teaching for the ministry and subsequently served in several Ontario circuits.3 As Methodism had evolved from a sect to an established middle-class church, the denomination had placed increasing emphasis on an educated ministry. Accordingly, Crossley followed the usual course for a Methodist ministerial candidate and for two years attended Victoria College in Cobourg, Ontario. He studied moral philosophy, Old Testament history, ethics, evidences of religion, and regular arts courses including classics, Greek, and literary subjects. This education left an impression – the evangelist’s gospel message drew extensively from liberal Protestant thinking. Yet, while Crossley enjoyed his studies, his primary interest lay in revivals.4 John Edwin Hunter shared that passion. Hunter was born on 29 July 1856 to an Ontario farming family living near Bowmanville, in Durham County. Fifteen years later he was “born again.” Hunter’s conversion during a backwoods Methodist revival meeting marked the beginning of a new life in Christ and the advent of a life-long passion. Convinced that God was calling him to preach the gospel, he responded immediately, returning home and witnessing to his family.

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In a short time, his father, mother, four sisters, and two brothers followed his lead, experienced conversion, and joined the Methodist church. This initial success was a sign of things to come.5 Hunter entered the Methodist ministry at nineteen and served for two years on the Thamesville Circuit in western Ontario, before entering Victoria College. Here his zeal for evangelism continued to burn brightly. No opportunity was wasted; even train trips to and from Cobourg were used to witness to his fellow passengers and train men. At the college, the exuberant young preacher met Crossley, and the two became friends. They organized meetings for their fellow students and quickly gained a reputation for evangelistic success.6 Their partnership ended temporarily when they finished their courses of study and went separate ways. Ordained as a Methodist minister, Hunter relocated to the Waterdown and Ancaster Circuits near Hamilton, Ontario, where he launched several revivals. When his health faltered, he and his wife moved to Dominion City, Manitoba. Hunter took his own charge there and preached conversion in several nearby centres as well. Crossley was ordained in 1880 and served in churches in the Ontario cities of St. Catharines, Hamilton, and Brantford. The young minister enjoyed his work, but he longed to conduct revivals more frequently. One evening in 1883, Crossley penned a letter to Hunter. It had been four years since they had conducted revivals as a team, and Crossley felt that it was time for them to reunite and enter full-time evangelistic work together. Unaware of Crossley’s intentions, Hunter wrote a similar note the same day. The two letters crossed in the mail, and the friends took the coincidence to be a sign from God: a call to conduct revival services together. Later, they met at Hunter’s home in Essex Centre and opened their work that night.7 Their initial success was promising. During their first year together, according to one newspaper account, over 2,500 people professed conversion. In the course of one month-long campaign in Toronto, they held an estimated fifty-five meetings and spoke to between 75,000 and 100,000 people. In a short time, contemporaries came to view Crossley and Hunter as the foremost Canadian evangelistic team of its day. Requests for their services poured in, and engagements for their campaigns were booked three years in advance.8 These revivals were not a response to a widespread societal crisis. On balance, the Canadian economy enjoyed respectable growth through this period. The country’s industries had limped through the 1870s, and desperate Canadians had looked to their federal politicians for relief. John A. Macdonald had answered with his “National Policy,” and with this economic plan Macdonald’s Conservatives had

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won re-election in 1878. The return to power of this architect of confederation brought a renewed sense of optimism. The 1880s opened hopefully, as leading capitalists embarked on ambitious projects and Canadians rallied behind them. The most powerful of this breed of entrepreneurs were the railway builders, and the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, which linked the country from coast to coast, served as a fitting symbol of the mood of the Dominion. The building of the railways had a profound effect on Canadian life. The tariffs instituted through the National Policy encouraged the domestic production of engines, cars, rails, and other implements, which in turn led to the formation of steel mills and other machineoriented businesses. Markets for factory-produced products were opened up as the rail network expanded. As a result of the National Policy and the railway, central Canada was transformed from an agrarian to an increasingly urban, industrialized society. Cotton mills, stove and other manufacturing plants sprang up where wheat and corn had once grown. The introduction of new technologies resulted in rising levels of industrial production, and factory owners soon discovered that they could boost production with only a minimal increase in costs. But in order to keep their high-production facilities operating on a steady basis, the market for their products had to expand. Businessmen who had previously handled the marketing of their wares now looked to advertisers to boost demand and move goods off store shelves and into consumers’ homes. Advertising agencies were organized to provide these services, and newspaper and magazine advertisements and window displays became more prominent and sophisticated. Marketing practices in Canada, notes historian David Monod, “changed decisively … in the 1870s and 1880s.”9 Emphasis was given to what was “new,” and choice became one of the watchwords of the era. Many of these changes were manifested in the rise of department stores, and few were more successful than the one that carried the name of prominent Toronto Methodist Timothy Eaton. Realizing that the largest profits came not from mark-up but from a rapid turnover in stock, Eaton outfitted his store with a restaurant and other amenities in order to keep customers in the store and buying. Shopping became recreation and more – a visit to Eaton’s could better your life. Attractive displays of imitations of haute couture fashions seemed to promise consumers that a few dollars could buy happiness.10 As the industrial labour force grew, and as workdays became shorter in length, Canadians had more time and money to spend in stores such as Eaton’s. The nascent Canadian commercial culture took firmest root among the middle classes, who prospered as much and

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more than the factory workers. As the wealth of these urban Canadians rose, their lifestyle became increasingly comfortable. They looked to the future with confidence: the economic changes that accompanied central Canada’s industrialization were a sign of great things to come. Their churches seemed to be changing for the better as well. Methodism had taken root in Ontario in the early nineteenth century among settlers eking a living out of the wilderness. The denomination had flourished as a result of the tireless efforts of itinerants who travelled on horseback to isolated communities to preach sin and salvation under an open sky. By mid-century, the settlers, many of whom had become successful farmers or businessmen, met in modest churches frequented by visiting ministers. By the 1880s, urban middle-class Methodists worshipped in well-appointed buildings led by college-educated pastors. Such “monuments to Methodist progress” as Toronto’s Metropolitan Methodist Church, a neoGothic cathedral opened in 1872, symbolized late nineteenth-century Methodists’ place in society.11 Methodists also took pride in the 1884 union of various assemblies – the Bible Christian connexion, the Primitive Methodist connexion, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Methodist Church of Canada.12 Soon the new national church, which Crossley and Hunter represented and under whose auspices they undertook their work, centralized its resources and joined forces with Canada’s other mainstream churches to achieve their common purpose of realizing the Kingdom of God on earth. Leaders of the mainstream churches – Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican, and Baptist – recognized that commercial values were becoming increasingly dominant in society, a notion that was echoed by a foreign visitor who remarked that Canadians “seemed totally absorbed in the business of becoming rich.”13 To encourage Canadians to store up riches in heaven as well as on earth, the churches sponsored a multitude of volunteer organizations and outreach endeavours. This period marked the rise of what contemporaries called the “institutional church.” The term was coined in 1893 to describe social congregations which offered a panoply of social service and recreational options to their members, including girls’ and boys’ clubs, youth groups, athletic teams, Sunday Schools, concerts, socials, women’s meetings, benevolent societies, and temperance societies, to name a few. In a related development, this period also witnessed the increasing professionalization of the clergy. Bright, educated, efficient men were needed to lead these increasingly complex organizations, and their status rose as church dominance over English-Canadian life expanded. But these ministers could not be expected to master all aspects of the work. As church life became

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diversified, Methodist leaders recognized the need to appoint ministers whose sole focus was conversion.14 Crossley and Hunter were among the first Conference evangelists appointed by the Methodist Church in 1884. Professional revivalists were ordained ministers who, instead of taking a charge, engaged in preaching wherever they were invited. Employed in a special kind of work, they developed a special kind of method. Often they travelled in pairs, one preaching and the other singing. The length of their visit in any particular place was determined by their success in promoting a spirit of religious revival. The preaching of these special evangelists strengthened the work of the mainstream churches. The revivalists could be called in for special events or at times of the year when the regular work of the church tended to lag, and they became particularly important in the launching of financial campaigns. The job of Conference evangelists was both liberating and limiting. Crossley and Hunter were finally free to pursue what they viewed to be the highest calling: to bring about life-changing conversions among Canadians. At the same time, however, they worked as employees of the Methodist Church. While they were given latitude in how they conducted their revivals, they could always be fired. When Ralph Horner, one of their number, refused to curb the excessive emotionalism of his services, he was deposed and expelled. The Church’s priorities became the evangelists’ priorities as well. Fortunately for these evangelists, the first step in the conversion of the nation, according to many church leaders, was the conversion of the individual. According to E. H. Dewart, editor of the influential Methodist newspaper the Christian Guardian from 1869 to 1894, political and social institutions could not be responsible for expunging societal evils, because the real cause of these iniquities was sinful human nature. Thus, the church’s first duty was “to fulfil its mission in the world … by being the instrument of bringing men from sin to holiness, and from the power of Satan unto God.”15 The chief instrument for bringing men and women “from sin to holiness” was the religious revival. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, English-speaking Canadians had set up an elaborate network for the religious nurture of their children. Young people attended Sunday School or read religious lessons in the newspaper; they listened to speakers at meetings of the Young Men’s Christian Association or the Women’s Christian Temperance Union; at school, their principals and teachers were church leaders. Though surrounded by moral influences, the pivotal moment of their religious rite of passage – a conversion – usually occurred during a revival. The experience of social gospel leader Salem Bland was typical. In 1875, the sixteen-year-old

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son of a Methodist preacher anxiously awaited the arrival of American evangelist Dwight L. Moody. Despite the meticulous religious instruction Bland had received in his youth, he did not yet judge himself a Christian. “Somehow,” Bland reminisced nearly a half century later, “I could hardly think of being converted except in a revival campaign.”16 Some Methodists questioned the effectiveness of revivals. Many, however, continued to view them as agencies through which God could work. They took the success of Moody as proof that revivals could still be effective in the late 1800s. According to one appraisal, in the last half of the nineteenth century, Moody “could plausibly have been called Mr. Revivalist and perhaps even Mr. Protestant.”17 He held several campaigns in major Canadian cities that proved popular among both ministers and lay people.18 Evangelists like Moody, who worked independently of any church and who limited their appeals to personal conversion, were the norm in the United States during this period. In English Canada, however, revivalism was altered in the last half of the nineteenth century. As a result of the efforts of the churches, mass evangelism was tied more closely to the mainstream denominations, and the revival message went beyond conversion to include Christian living. Furthermore, revivals in English Canada’s mainstream churches involved the consolidation of religious institutions, as doctrinal differences were laid aside by church leaders who viewed the nature of theology to be essentially practical.19 The major denominations often co-sponsored evangelists. These “Union” services were characterized by a lay religion that was distinct from church-type Christianity. In theology it emphasized a simplistic approach to the Bible and contempt for divisive dogmas. In style its leaders practiced a comfortable informality, engaging their audiences with jokes and stories before getting down to the serious business of revived religion. Evangelists promoted Christianity by aiming at the intellect – conversion was presented as an act of the will – and addressing contemporary social and moral questions. In short, what in the early nineteenth century had been a spontaneous affair emphasizing personal release was now an institution that focused on the practical needs and moral responsibilities of the individual.20 These new campaigns were led by religious entrepreneurs who both represented and encouraged the popular theology and style of the era, and Crossley and Hunter were the most successful of the Methodist Church’s corps of professional evangelists. The campaigns in Toronto and other cities in the mid-1880s helped build their reputation. But these early successes were soon dwarfed by a revival in Ottawa in 1888 attended by Canada’s prime minister, Sir John A.

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Macdonald, and several members of parliament and senators. On the final night of Crossley and Hunter’s six-week evangelistic campaign, when it was requested that the evangelists remain for one more week, Macdonald asked if he could second the motion. That same evening, a significant event apparently occurred in the life of the hard-drinking prime minister. Macdonald frequently scoffed at mainstream church notions of respectability, especially in regard to alcohol consumption, and had once joked that voters would prefer him drunk to his opponent, George Brown, sober.21 However, on this occasion, a newspaper reported: “when in answer to an appeal by Mr. Hunter that all who wished to become Christians and desired the prayers of the audience would stand up, the premier of the Dominion … arose with his wife.”22 According to another journalist, “when the well-known form of the Honourable Premier arose in the centre of the church many strong men bowed their heads and wept for joy. The right honourable gentleman himself was deeply affected.”23 After dining at the prime minister’s home several days later, Hunter confirmed that “Sir John is a changed man.”24 Whatever this experience may have done for Macdonald, it set a seal of approval on Crossley and Hunter’s work and garnered them a public image that eclipsed that of their Canadian colleagues. The story of the statesman’s relationship with Crossley and Hunter and his spiritual rebirth was retold in nearly every city that hosted a Crossley-Hunter revival.25 The campaign in Ottawa was similar to those held in other North American centres. The meetings usually began at 7:30, and the first fifteen minutes were spent in a “service of song” led by Crossley and accompanied by a volunteer, inter-church choir. At 7:45, as the last notes of the closing song faded into silence, Hunter stepped behind the pulpit and opened the meeting with prayer. He then embarked on a ten minute dramatic discourse, loosely based on a passage of the Bible. It was often sprinkled, as a reporter in Chicago observed, “with stories of a humorous nature, frequently starting hearty bursts of laughter.”26 More singing followed, then Hunter presented requests for prayer and led the congregation in bringing these before God. After more music, Crossley stepped forward to deliver an often emotional message. Known as the “Singing Evangelist,” he frequently delivered his thoughts in the form of a “Song Sermon,” underlining the important themes of his message with relevant hymns intoned in a mellow baritone voice. The sermon inevitably concluded with an earnest appeal to “accept Christ at once.” The “after meeting” then began, with the choir softly singing a hymn while Hunter exhorted those in the audience to signify their request for the prayers of Christians by rising for a moment. The service continued as Hunter, standing among the pews, called upon those who wished to become

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Christians to come to the front of the sanctuary. Crossley and Hunter would then walk up and down the aisles, aid Christians who were pleading with their unrepentant relatives and friends, and lead some to the front of the sanctuary. As penitents were drawn to conversion by the ministers seated with them at the bench or kneeling at the altar rail, the service was closed. As a result of these conversions, the tone of towns like Thorold, Windsor, and Kingston changed visibly, if only temporarily. Drinking establishments were frequently emptied and, on several occasions, theatres closed for lack of business. The transformation was often noted by the local newspaper. Soon after a Crossley-Hunter campaign in Thorold in 1893, the local daily linked a decline in attendance at a dance to Crossley’s proscription of this kind of entertainment. A newspaper in Windsor observed that “there is no doubt that for some time, the vast question of the soul and its well being has been a current topic upon the streets, and wherever men are together. Everybody talks it in some way.” All of this talk often added up to what the editor of the Kingston Daily British Whig in 1889 called a “toning up [of] the morality of hundreds of citizens.”27 These religious events fit historian Richard Carwardine’s description of the “small-town revival.” The evangelistic campaigns he studied in the United States and Great Britain from the 1790s to the 1860s persisted in English Canada into the late nineteenth century. Population size was not a factor; what was of “crucial importance in producing revivals of this kind,” Carwardine states, “was the cultural and ethnic homogeneity of a relatively tightly knit community. With the whole town aroused … the backslider, the unconverted inquirer, or the nonconformist might come under intense psychological and social pressures to attend and submit.” The support of the town’s leading families generated excitement, but the goal was to affect the entire population. Aided by extensive coverage provided by the local press, the public’s interest was maintained. Issues of social morality were given priority, and many rejoiced as evils like alcoholism, dancing, and the theatre were supposedly swept from the community. Crossley and Hunter took pride in the changes wrought in Canadian cities as a result of their campaigns. The first step in the process of societal reformation, they were convinced, was the conversion of individual men and women. This was Crossley and Hunter’s primary concern.28

the message: “accept christ at once” From 1884 to 1910, Crossley and Hunter preached at least once and sometimes several times a day on the necessity of conversion. Over the course of their twenty-six year career together, the essential

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message remained unchanged. In fact, the actual sermons and the order in which they were delivered differed little from 1884 to 1910. Their primary focus was to bring others into a vital relationship with Christ. Drawing on passages of the Bible, the evangelists attempted to convince their listeners of the need of repentance for sin, the possibility of redemption in Christ, and the opportunity for regeneration with the help of the Holy Spirit. Each of Crossley’s sermons concluded with an earnest appeal to “accept Christ at once.” Hunter’s exhortations pushed the point home. While their message tapped into basic evangelical emphases, it was clothed in the garb of current concerns. In this way, Crossley and Hunter’s message was both traditional, rooted in the essential Christian gospel of sin and salvation, and contemporary, relevant to late nineteenth-century English Canadians.29 The evangelists devoted virtually every waking hour to bringing about conversions. Hunter, for instance, “was everywhere and all the time an evangelist,” a friend remembered. “He rarely ever got a shave without finding out if his barber were a Christian … He knew the ashmen who carried away the ashes of his home and he talked religion to them. He knew the washwoman who did the washing and attempted her conversion and usually succeeded.”30 The evangelists lived, breathed, and preached conversion at a time when the vast majority of Canada’s population held some connection to a mainstream church. In Ontario in 1881, less than 1 per cent of the population of the province claimed no religious affiliation. In full, 17 per cent were Roman Catholic, 6 per cent associated with smaller sects, while the rest – 77 per cent – were affiliated with the major Protestant denominations: the Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Baptists.31 The majority of those in attendance at Crossley-Hunter evangelistic services had been raised in the church. Yet some had not experienced conversion. The first step was repentance. Acknowledging specific sins was not a priority for Crossley and Hunter. More important was the recognition that, according to the evangelists, one was a sinner, and that the just punishment for sin was death and eternity in Hell. One could avoid this end by “receiving Christ” as “Saviour.” By dying on the cross, Christ had served as a substitute for humanity. This substitutionary atonement was His gift to the world. One’s sins would be forgiven by God the Father if one accepted that gift – if one “received Christ,” the author of salvation. The evangelists did not spell out the doctrine of the atonement – it was simply taken for granted. Instead, they impressed on their listeners the need for a decision. Attending church, reading the Bible, saying prayers, and singing hymns was not enough. A conscious act of the will had to take place.

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“Receiving Christ,” as the evangelists put it, was the only logical choice. Crossley described this decision using the image of a flower drawn to the sun. He asked his listeners to “honestly test the question.” In his book Practical Talks on Important Themes he argued that if Jesus was not the Christ, “then your mind will be no more affected than would the flower if there were no light outside the window; but if He, as revealed, is the Light, the Saviour of the world, then as surely as the flower is drawn towards the light, so surely will your unprejudiced mind and honest heart be naturally drawn to believe that He is the Christ.” His method was intended to be universally applicable. “Every one,” he predicted, “however sceptical, who will honestly test … by throwing up the blinds of prejudice and opening the shutters of opposition, will soon … be able consciously to say, ‘He is my Saviour too.’”32 In order to know their “Saviour” better, converts needed to spend time with Him each day. Crossley advocated “a regular time for daily Bible study,” during which converts could read and meditate on a passage or book of the Bible. The Bible was “God’s Word” to humanity, and the source of all truth. Those who wished to know God’s will for their lives would find the answers there. Crossley counselled against “misguided persons” who listened to what they claimed was God’s voice, and acted upon that direction, even when it conflicted with the Bible. “The Holy Spirit guides us by studying His Word and … using our judgement, and not fanatical fancies,” Crossley emphasized.33 Guided by God’s Word, and affiliated with a church, a Christian could look forward to a life filled with blessings. Crossley’s theology was essentially optimistic, in tune with the times. Many Protestants looked to the future with confidence; theirs was an era when everything seemed to be improving. Progress, in the words of one scholar, was “the major certitude of Victorian culture.” For Methodists, the bright vista was enhanced by the mathematical data compiled by one of their members. In 1891, the Reverend George H. Cornish penned a “Statistical Record of the Progress of Methodism,” an essay that overflowed with a mass of data on almost every conceivable aspect of Methodist life in Canada. The tallied numbers seemed to illustrate clearly the handiwork of spiritual forces. Cornish concluded that “the multiplied and ever-increasing agencies” of Methodism were an integral component of God’s plan to triumphantly return and benevolently reign over his creation.34 “The world is getting better,” Crossley agreed. “The Church is advancing. The Gospel is now preached in every land … The spirit of Christian unity between the various Churches is deeper and wider than ever before. The missionary spirit, which is the spirit of Christ,

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is growing every year.”35 The apparent growth in numbers of Christianity in general and Methodism in particular seemed to validate Crossley’s sunny view of the future. Some, however, saw storm clouds on the horizon: modern scientific and theological ideas seemed to threaten traditional Protestant belief. Foremost among these were Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and the new historical criticism of the Bible. In 1859, Darwin had published his landmark Origin of Species, which outlined a law of progressive development. Summarized recently as “a scientifically credible theory of random and purposeless change,”36 his theory appeared to limit the intervention of God in history. “Historical criticism” was the term given to the advanced scholarship originating in Germany. Increasing knowledge of ancient life led many biblical scholars to call into question the validity of miracles reported in the Bible, the dates of certain books, and even their authorship. In the United States, these new ideas profoundly shook the mainstream evangelical tradition. In contrast, English-speaking Protestant Canadians, led by popular religious leaders like Crossley and Hunter, received the new ideas with relative calm. Several highly publicized heresy trials in Canada caused anxiety in some quarters, but most Protestants easily accommodated their beliefs to evolution and biblical criticism. Those who protested that the new ideas required a fundamental overhaul of Protestant theology formed a small minority of late nineteenth-century Christians. More representative of contemporary thought were clergy-professors such as Nathanael Burwash, the Chancellor of Victoria College, who led the rapprochement between Christianity and the new ideas. Beyond the Ivory Tower, editors of religious newspapers confidently asserted that God, as both Creator of nature and author of the Bible, could not contradict Himself: His works and His Word must necessarily agree. Following Burwash and others who deftly accommodated Protestant thinking to modern intellectual insights, these believers were keenly aware that reinterpretation was needed to keep the faith relevant. As a writer to the Christian Guardian observed, “the influence of Methodism upon the future of this country will depend upon our keeping up the old Methodist earnestness in a way adapted to our own times.”37 This accommodating spirit was in keeping with “liberal Protestantism,” which was formed out of the Protestant tradition and the intellectual environment of the late nineteenth-century. The “liberal spirit” of the late 1800s affected scientific, philosophical, economic, political, and religious thought and came to represent confidence tempered with open-mindedness. The pursuit of knowledge in this spirit was

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permeated with a respect for the scientific method and modern learning and an optimism in the future of humanity. At the same time, liberal Protestantism was rooted in a traditional Christian emphasis on experience as a basis for truth, a respect for the church, a focus on the person of Jesus Christ, and an emphasis on social reform.38 Crossley and Hunter reflected the late nineteenth-century liberal Protestant balance of traditional and modern pursuits of truth. According to Crossley, there was no disjunction between science and the faith. As one newspaper reported it, “he said he pitied the man who was so ignorant as to think that science was opposed to religion. ‘Science,’ he said, ‘is the handmaiden of religion.’” Furthermore, no one was asked to blindly accept the truths of Christianity. “God does not stifle reason and enquiry about religion,” counselled Crossley, “but says, ‘Come now, and let us reason together.’”39 Crossley confidently contended that the Christian faith could withstand all intellectual challenges. In this way he was typical of his age: late nineteenth-century Canadian evangelicals viewed the Bible as an infallible document that revealed God at work in history. At the same time, nineteenth-century evangelicals believed that the Bible contained a human element, and that the scriptures should therefore be interpreted according to present realities.40 In addition, Crossley and Hunter accommodated their message to contemporary folk religion. For instance, the rising interest in spiritualism created opportunities which the evangelists used to their advantage. The testimonies of English-speaking Canadians who embraced spiritualism in the late nineteenth century indicate that adoption of these beliefs frequently followed the death of a close relative or friend. Sensitive to this, the evangelists made frequent references to death and claimed that those who had passed on could witness events on earth. For these Methodists, as for the spiritualists, the dead were still very much present among the living. They could not intervene in day-to-day events, but they did see all from on high.41 The evangelists also referred to mothers in heaven who watched the actions of their children on earth. They recognized that the memories of caring mothers might spark conversions. According to Hunter, even Prime Minister Macdonald had noted that “he had never … forgotten the home training and the godly influence of his parents.”42 Canadians at the other end of the social spectrum were equally affected, as the testimony of an inmate in Kingston Penitentiary attested. After attending a Crossley-Hunter revival service in the penitentiary, the convict penned a letter to the evangelists. Read by Hunter during the closing week of the 1889 Kingston revival, the letter stated that the evangelists “brought the writer’s dear mother’s

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face before him. Tears came to his eyes as he seemed to hear his mother say ‘I am waiting for you my son. I have faith in you, and I love you still my dear boy.’” The letter was signed “Hope.”43 Crossley and Hunter also knew that the loss of a child could bring people closer to conversion. The death of a child posed the most difficult of religious problems in the late nineteenth century, as it does today. In the late 1800s, the tragedy was faced on a frequent basis. In the United States, up to 40 per cent of all deaths were of children under five. Canada was no different: during the first decade of the twentieth century only two out of three babies in Montreal lived to see their first birthday. The experience of Nathanael Burwash and his wife, Margaret, was not uncommon. In one week in June 1889, four of their children died of black diphtheria, including their four-yearold twin sons. The loss was a pivotal moment in Margaret’s life; according to her son, it led her to shift some of her focus to a ‘higher and more spiritual vision of the life beyond.’”44 The death of a child created a unique religious space for the entry of Crossley and Hunter’s message of conversion. Hunter revealed to an audience in Belleville, Ontario that “God often transplanted the little one, the pretty child around whom the best feelings of the heart were entwined, the best loved; transplanted it from the garden of earth to the garden of heaven, where it pulled at the heart strings of its unconverted parents and seemed calling to them from heaven to direct them on the way.”45 Hunter’s comments, coupled with Crossley singing the lament of a dead child for her unsaved father, “Papa, come this way,” created a powerful catalyst that released emotions suppressed and perhaps forgotten. References to what lay beyond life on earth were a staple of their services. For Crossley and Hunter, heaven and hell were literal places of reward or punishment. However, the evangelists rarely indulged in morbid descriptions of “fire and brimstone.” Hell was usually described as a place of sorrow, populated by rum sellers and dancing teachers. Most of the evangelists’ discourse on the afterlife was concerned with heaven. In this regard, they followed the lead of D.L. Moody, who marked a shift in revivalists’ emphasis from hell to heaven as a way of drawing penitents to conversion. Instead of threatening listeners with descriptions of eternal fire, Moody encouraged them with images drawn from the Bible and middle-class family life.46 The Christian could look forward to this heavenly reward. Meanwhile, there was work to be done, work which required the complete dedication of God’s people. Crossley spoke frequently of the need for each Christian to be “sanctified” – to be made sinless. His sermons on this subject were meant to address recent developments in

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evangelical theology, developments that were confusing to many Methodists. Striving toward sinless living had been a central tenet of Methodism since the establishment of the denomination. John Wesley, the church’s founder, had preached and written extensively about the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” which could bring a Christian into a state of “perfection” or “perfect love.” Interest in sanctification had increased in the 1850s when the revivals of American Methodists James Caughey and Phoebe and Walter Palmer had popularized the notion of a distinct “second blessing” which followed conversion.47 Forty years later, the preoccupation with holiness had become sufficiently pervasive to become a concern for evangelical Protestants in other denominations.48 By this time, however, the Methodist version had been challenged by a new interpretation – Keswick holiness. In the Keswick understanding of holiness, the Methodist notion of an instantaneous baptism of the Holy Spirit which eradicated a Christian’s sinful nature was replaced by a daily filling of the Holy Spirit which suppressed the sinful nature.49 Methodists were overjoyed to see holiness embraced by Protestants of all denominational stripes. At the same time, they were concerned that the Keswick doctrine of the “suppression” of an ever-present sinful nature would come to replace Wesley’s notions of the complete “eradication” of all “inbred sin.” There were other challenges to the Methodist doctrine as well. Some preachers appeared to view holiness as an experience that paralleled or even replaced conversion, and some seekers manifested a hunger for spectacular “special blessings” that the more established, conventional churches apparently refused to offer. This widespread longing for sanctification led a number of frustrated Methodists out of their staid churches and into radical movements.50 Foremost among these were the Hornerites, followers of Canadian evangelist Ralph Horner. The Hornerites were predominantly lower and lower-middle class English-speaking Protestant Canadians who revelled in an outpouring of emotion that marked their version of “sanctification.”51 Crossley and Hunter appear to have drawn their audiences from the middle and upper classes, with some exceptions. Their notions of sanctification were more in keeping with the prevailing late nineteenth-century emphasis on respectability. In his sermons on sanctification, Crossley accommodated the theology of the past to contemporary norms, redefining the Methodist approach in the process. Sanctification did not have to be endlessly sought, nor did it come like a lightening bolt from above. In order to receive the gift of sanctification, all a Christian had to do was ask. Crossley’s interpretation resonated with the practical spirit of the day.

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By simply claiming Christian perfection, a believer could receive it. A recipient who stumbled into sin might simply petition God once again. The proof, of course, was in the avoidance of those pitfalls. According to Crossley’s interpretation, sanctification was righteous living – adhering to the externals of religion. It meant being useful for God by doing good deeds. Crossley refused to take sides with either the Keswick or Methodist holiness factions, and in this way ably represented his sponsors. Canada’s mainline churches had laid aside doctrinal differences so that they could work together to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, a spirit of cooperation that was manifested in Crossley and Hunter’s “union services.” Debates over non-essentials such as sanctification did little to further God’s work – action was the need of the day. The evidence of a perfected Christian life was clear; according to Crossley, sanctification “made the possessor more amiable, easier to get along with and of more service in the cause of God.”52 In the end, sanctification was a means for helping to Christianize Canadian society. This state of sanctified bliss could be lost, according to Crossley, if the follower of Christ indulged in worldly pursuits. As a result, the evangelists damned with remarkable frequency alcohol, card-playing, and especially dancing, pleasures which diverted people from lives of productive Christian effort. In their denunciations of these “carnal” pleasures Crossley and Hunter were typical of leaders of the major Protestant denominations. While belief in God was widespread in the nineteenth century, acceptance of the entire “package” of Protestant moral behaviour was less uniform among English-speaking Canadians. Despite the protests of the clergy, many men and women took advantage of the increasing options for entertainment in the growing cities by attending the theatre or raising a glass at the local tavern. Religious leaders were determined to rectify the situation and embarked on a nineteenth-century reformation that manifested itself in what church historian John Webster Grant has called “the activist temper.” The churches responded to the challenges of a capitalistic society with “a veritable epidemic of voluntary activity that permanently altered the institutional shape of religion.”53 Encouraged by the clergy and sponsored by the laity, this “epidemic” created various mission societies like the Young Men’s and Women’s Christian Associations and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (wctu). As a result of the efforts of the women of the wctu and their allies, the Canada Temperance Act had been passed in 1878, allowing municipalities to prohibit the sale of liquor after holding a plebiscite. Pious Protestant evangelicals also sought to keep Sundays pure. Their Sabbatarian crusades were remarkably successful, to the dismay of a

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visiting British scientist who noted ruefully in 1897 that “altogether, Sunday in Toronto is as melancholy and suicidal a sort of day as Puritan principles can make it.”54 Methodists were on the vanguard of this crusade, and their denomination had earned a reputation for its preoccupation with rules and prohibitions. This obsession was evident at the 1886 General Conference when delegates added a footnote to the Methodist “Discipline” prohibiting such activities as the drinking of alcoholic beverages, card-playing, dancing, and circus-going.55 Many viewed revivalism as a means of furthering the cause of the footnote. It was only fitting that Crossley and Hunter reserved time in their sermons to address the sins which they believed poisoned individual souls and society in general. They were unflinching in their support of the 1886 Conference Footnote and proved to be useful instruments in its implementation until it was abandoned by Methodists in 1910. During the evangelists’ campaign in Belleville in 1908, for instance, the Daily Intelligencer reported that “Drink, the dance, racing, theatre, cards, and cheap shows were condemned as ‘the tropical hatcheries of the death-dealing evils of our times.’”56 In his book Practical Talks on Important Themes, Crossley devoted one chapter each to “The Theatre,” “The Cards,” “The Weed,” “The Licensed Liquor Traffic,” and “The Parlour Dance,” with special attention directed at what he called “the promiscuous dance.”57 Crossley had no quarrel with edifying recreation. What bothered him, and many others in the late nineteenth century, were dancing parties. On some occasions, these were innocuous entertainments. On many others, however, young men and women indulged in alcoholic beverages and danced in close proximity. As far as Crossley was concerned, this was a recipe for disaster. His chief criticism, though it was rarely stated explicitly, was that parlour dancing brought to the surface sexual impulses normally suppressed. In his unequivocally titled Dance of Death, published in 1877, journalist Ambrose Pierce had been less circumspect. “Perfect dancers,” he had noted, found the waltz “an actual realization of a certain physical ecstasy which should at least be indulged in private, and as some would go so far as to say, under the matrimonial restrictions.” As far as he was concerned, “the privileges of matrimony relieve the necessity for the dance.”58 Concerns regarding dancing parties stemmed from late nineteenthcentury middle-class values. Historian T. J. Jackson Lears argues that, as American society in the late 1800s became increasingly individualistic, and as older, external forms of moral authority dissolved, many searched for a source of moral ballast. They found it in the notion of self-control, replacing outside oppression with internal

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repression. “By the 1880s,” contends Lears, “whether sanctioned by secular or religious authority, an internalized ethic of self-control had become the unquestioned norm for the middle and upper classes as well as for much of the rest of society.”59 This was the case in English Canada as well: Crossley attacked the “promiscuous dance” because it symbolized unfettered passion. The physical intimacy between a couple during the dance quickly led to sexual sin and the destruction of a young lady’s reputation. Fellow evangelist Sam Jones was correct, said Crossley. Dancing was simply “hugging set to music,” and it should be stopped.60 Hunter echoed Crossley’s sentiments with stronger words. Rather than begging listeners not to indulge in the dance, he confronted and attempted to humiliate the men who taught it. In contrast to the evangelists, who held themselves up as masculine models of selfcontrol, dancing teachers were portrayed as effeminate sops. Hunter usually summed up his attack on their manhood in a few words. “Dancing masters are poor stuff,” he would tell his audience, “spiderlegged, eye-glass wearing dudes.” On other occasions he would note in his inimitable way: “I would as soon see the arms of an orangoutang around my wife’s or sister’s waist as the arms of one of these lecherous dancing masters.”61 Outrageous comments like these drew crowds. They also drew opposition from churchgoers who saw nothing wrong with the dance and demanded an apology. But Hunter did not budge, and his partner supported him. Crossley consistently argued that, while an action might not be immoral, this did not necessarily make it acceptable. In a church that was striving to Christianize all aspects of Canadian life, the slightest appearance of evil made the questionable activity anathema. The evangelist made his maxim clear: “Never compromise, but always and everywhere set an example worthy of imitation; so shall your life before the world … be unimpeachable.”62

the method: “a good night out” Crossley and Hunter’s censure of entertainments like the dance may have struck contemporaries as old-fashioned. The evangelists’ approach to spreading their message, however, was unapologetically modern. In an attempt to draw women and men to their message of conversion, Crossley and Hunter adopted a two-pronged strategy. First, they used their considerable authority as representatives of the mainstream churches to attempt to ban these entertainments. Second, the evangelists incorporated many of the techniques of their primary

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competition – the theatre – into their services. Their goal was to make Canada a Christian nation – to saturate public life with the sacred – and they were happy to use the devil’s means to do it. Why should he have all the fun? The revivals of Crossley and Hunter were “manufactured” entertainment events, carefully planned in advance, publicized by the press, tailored to the audience, and then repeated at the next town or city six weeks later. The marketplace of entertainment was becoming increasingly competitive in late nineteenth-century urban Canada. Rural life and the demands of farming left little time for amusement. In contrast, urbanization and industrialization provided workers and white-collar employees, including women and older girls, with disposable income and leisure time to spend it. A generation earlier, entertainment had been shared among members of a community. In the increasingly anonymous cities of the late 1800s, it was more likely to be enjoyed among strangers. Churches, lodges, and community centres had provided communal entertainment in the past, where audience and performers were often one and the same. But rather than making their own entertainment, late nineteenth-century Canadians purchased it, and merchants worked diligently to both create and meet the demand. Entrepreneurs in entertainment opened amusement parks, dance halls, taverns, and theatres, offering a commodified leisure to the delight of many Canadians. One of the most popular diversions of the time, the theatrical arts experienced significant expansion in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Touring companies operating out of New York City reached a large percentage of the Canadian population. In many cities, comfortable theatres were erected to meet the demand, and these buildings became the source of much community pride. Unfortunately, the behaviour of some patrons occasionally challenged the sense of self-satisfaction. Scenes of drunkenness, cursing, and pushing were commonplace in the theatre. In cities like Kingston the local authorities were forced to take action, prompting a journalist to note that “when there is a performance at the Opera House, you’ll always find the police there.”63 Contemporary moralists were just as bothered by what they saw onstage. According to Robertson Davies, the late nineteenth-century theatre was “the scene of every kind of entertainment that was not positively circus.”64 One week might feature Booth and Barrett performing Julius Caesar; the next might headline burlesque. The latter often garnered the most attention. George Lipsitz has argued that “the sexual repressions of the Victorian era created powerful anxieties

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and tensions that could not be confronted directly by ‘respectable’ citizens. But theatre productions offered audiences an opportunity to view the forbidden and to contemplate the unthinkable.”65 As a result, Canadian theatres became the source of much consternation among the clergy.66 The efforts of a group of concerned Methodists resulted in a new rule in the 1898 Doctrine and Discipline of the Methodist Church of Canada forbidding theatre attendance of any kind. A year later ministers engaged in a general debate on “The Ethical Basis of the Current Drama” at Toronto’s Central Methodist Church. The resolution was ambiguous, to say the least. According to a report in the Toronto Globe, a conclusion “adverse to the drama” was reached. It was noted, however, that “the decision as to attending good plays was practically left to the individual Christian.” This was undoubtedly applauded by those who did not want to give up the popular pastime, but ministers may have been equally pleased – most found the issue distracting. A correspondent to the Christian Guardian described the amusements rule as “troublesome, distressing, perplexing and mischief-working … involving more disputes in our membership, and causing more anxiety to our pastors, than any other phase of our economy.”67 Most ministers were happy to give up their roles as the leisure police. Crossley and Hunter, for their part, stood squarely against the theatre and welcomed the opportunity to debate the subject. They took it upon themselves to defend the traditional Methodist interdiction against the stage. They were convinced that the theatre was an immoral institution breeding vice and ultimately destroying souls. In addition, the evangelists viewed the theatre as a source of competition which was becoming more popular with each passing year. Not surprisingly, they spared few opportunities to attack theatrical entertainments. As Crossley saw it, “the theatre is Satan’s church, and so is no place for a member of the Church of Christ.”68 Worldly amusements like the theatre took attention away from God and sometimes mocked God’s church. Furthermore, the theatre was an environment that fostered ungodly behaviour. Crossley and Hunter’s antipathy was evident when the evangelists arrived in Belleville in March of 1888 and immediately declared that theatrical activities would come under attack. At their second service at Bridge Street Methodist Church, Hunter “wondered how many members of the church there were at the Opera House over the way.” Two services later, the newspaper reported that “he asked parents who were present where their boys were tonight? He said he saw a number of boys hanging around the door of the Opera House tonight, and advised parents to go right out and bring their boys in.” The following week he again chastised those

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who allowed their children to witness theatrical entertainments, lamenting that “it was a sorrowful thing for parents to take their children to an Opera House. Some had passions awakened there that led to their damnation.” As the Belleville Daily Intelligencer reported, Hunter even counselled the ushers “to let none go away, for if they could not get in they might go to a worse place over the way.”69 Members of Bridge Street Methodist listened awkwardly as the nation’s leading evangelists condemned to hell a building to which they had special ties. The day after their church had burned down in January, 1886, the directors of the Belleville Opera House had unanimously agreed to give the congregation the use of their auditorium, free of charge, on Sundays. The church members had gratefully accepted and worshipped in the Opera House the rest of the year. When the new house of worship was finally ready, Bridge Street’s trustees had vowed “to secure the very best talent possible to open the church,”70 and had invited Crossley and Hunter. Bridge Street’s Methodists had brought the evangelists to Belleville to help celebrate the new church, not destroy the livelihood of those who had sustained the congregation while it was being built. The minister at Bridge Street may have had ties to local merchants, some of whom may have been responsible for operating his church and paying his salary, and the divine would not have wanted to jeopardize his career by attacking their businesses. Crossley and Hunter, in contrast, had no connections to the community and operated unimpeded. This made them especially effective representatives of the Methodist Church and its Discipline. That was the case in Belleville. After a month of the evangelists’ attacks, the theatre surrendered. The newspaper revealed that “Theatre troupes having engagements here at an early date have all cancelled them on account of the slim attendance in consequence of the interest taken in the revival services.”71 After a short battle in Belleville, Crossley and Hunter seemed to reign victorious over the devil and his minions. The theatre had shut down, but not because everyone in Belleville agreed with the evangelists’ claim that the institution was evil. It had closed because it could not compete with the show across the road at Bridge Street Methodist Church. Crossley and Hunter recognized that they needed to do more than simply condemn the theatre; they needed to provide a substitute. At the same time that they spoke out against the stage, the Methodist Church’s “very best talent” borrowed from the theatre to make their revivals more attractive to audiences. In cities like Belleville, the strategy was successful. The evangelists orchestrated a flexible program that kept the audience busy and involved. They also altered their performance

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according to the expectations of the audience. On occasions when they were expected to adhere to a staid, worshipful tone, they conducted services that were praised for “keeping with the name and house of God.”72 But in other communities, among congregations that appreciated a more fervent approach, the evangelists delivered ardent emotional appeals.73 This penchant for accommodation reflected the contrasting personalities of the two men. Lending an aura of righteous, middle-class respectability to the service was Crossley’s role. He was a calm, upbeat evangelist, described by one reporter as “affable and pleasant, as near bordering on the phlegmatic as a revivalist well can be, and seldom loses the pleasing smile with which he cushions his hardest knocks.” Frequent reference was made to his straightforward preaching style, which undoubtedly appealed to middle-class audiences who had come to expect rational, thoughtful sermons. “His sermons are plain, pointed, logical, persuasive, and powerful,” a reporter commented. “His language is that of the home, the shop, the world, but perfectly free from slang. He puts the matter plainly before the people … [showing] vigorous thought and careful preparation.”74 This approach, while adding an air of respectability, was not enough to attract thousands of North Americans. Hunter provided the missing ingredient. Juxtaposed to his urban, scientific, courteous partner, Hunter was rural, emotional, confrontational, and flamboyant. Throwing off any pretension to learning, he embodied the determined circuit rider of the early nineteenth century, reminding his listeners of a bygone era in the Methodist Church. What reporters described as “magnetism” and “nervous fire” were nostalgic symbols of the fervour of the past. In the words of one reporter, Hunter “was a hotbed of enthusiasm, active on his feet and ready with his tongue, a restless spirit who does two hours work in one.” In the late nineteenth century, men aspired to be forceful and vigorous, qualities Hunter displayed in abundance. While Crossley’s face beamed, “Reverend Mr. Hunter seldom or never smiles, and then but in an apologetic manner. He is nervous and forceful in delivery, using free, frequent and vivid gestures.”75 Hunter’s comments covered a variety of topics in minimal time. As an observer in Chicago noted, Hunter “followed no set line of argument, but talked rapidly and impressively, paying no particular attention to commas, while his periods were riveted with a recommendation to ‘Pray now; God is here with you.’”76 Hunter’s frequent gesticulations, staccato delivery, and habit of pacing back and forth across the platform or running up and down the aisles combined to create a persona that aroused curiosity, encouraged comment, and

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generated further interest. Yet Hunter was more than an eccentric orator; at heart he was a born actor. As his son, the Reverend Ernest Crossley Hunter, put it: “My father was more emotional in his preaching than Crossley … he had graceful movements of body and hands, something of the quality of an actor.”77 Hunter’s melodramatic displays, as much intuitive as contrived, seemed geared to startle and completely overwhelm his listeners. One evening in Detroit, according to a newspaper reporter, “Mr. Hunter spoke of the child’s first prayer, then dropping on his knees repeated very feelingly, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ and told how that prayer followed men and women through life.” This was not unusual. As a journalist in Chicago observed, Hunter was “apt to drop to his knees at any point during the discourse.”78 Hunter’s forte was the delivery of dramatic Bible expositions, where his extemporaneous preaching and theatrical instincts were on display. Borrowing directly from the stage, Hunter masqueraded a variety of popular roles – especially the comedian. A tract Hunter published on tithing offers a glance at what one observer described as his “racy”79 style of exposition: “A hoarder of gold is a fool twice told. Gathering riches is like gathering nuts – you scratch your hands getting them and break your teeth in cracking them. Money is like manure – it is no good until it is spread out.”80 On other occasions he was capable of speaking in the most sorrowful of tones, as he and his audience mourned over lost chances at salvation. The famous story “The Heavenly Railroad,” included in one of his tracts, was read by the evangelist at least once in every city. Purported to be true, it related an incident on an American train headed west. A “little girl … scarce four years old” boarded alone. Soon the conductor arrived to collect tickets and fares. The young lady innocently informed him that she had no ticket, that she was bound for heaven to visit her dead mother who had sung to her of the heavenly railroad. “Mister, do you sing to your little girl about the railroad that goes to heaven?” she questioned. The conductor confessed, “No … I have no little girl now. I had one once, but she died some time ago, and went to heaven.” The child again asked, “Did she go over this railroad, and are you going to see her now?” “By this time,” the tract continued, “all in the carriage were upon their feet, and most of them were weeping.” As the parable ended, the child queried, “What shall I tell your little girl when I see her? Shall I say to her that I saw her Pa on Jesus railroad? Shall I?”81 In an era remarkable for its sentimentality, the tale inevitably brought men and women alike to tears – a common feature of CrossleyHunter meetings.

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Hunter conducted a gospel train of his own, carrying his audience from heights of joy to depths of grief. The mood of the audience was dictated by its engineer, and Hunter’s skills were noted wherever he travelled. One journalist approvingly observed that “it would be a difficult thing to find a person with better tact and skill in manipulating a crowd of people … than Brother Hunter.”82 The comment underscores how much revivalism had changed in the Methodist church. These were not the apparently spontaneous outpourings of the Holy Ghost that had marked the early 1800s; these were planned and controlled religious events, in keeping with the rational spirit of the late nineteenth century. The journalist could have said the same for Crossley’s music. His slate of songs for an evening covered the gamut of emotions. If the mood was light, he would include an upbeat tune or perhaps sing a “Negro spiritual.” After the “Heavenly Railroad,” he usually favoured a poignant ballad, such as “Papa, come this way.” As a father stood over the coffin of his young child, he heard a voice calling to him. In the concluding stanza, he accedes to his child’s wishes: “Wher-e’er I go, that voice I hear, As tho’ my dar-ling could not rest,/ Until I give my heart to him, Who died to save and make me blest./ And so it echoes in my heart, And thro’ the cham-bers of my soul,/ I’ll not re-sist that plead-ing voice, I’ll go to Jesus and be whole.”83 It was a highly entertaining spectacle. According to Hunter’s son, “People who liked music went to church. People who liked dramatic entertainment went to church. A good sermon was regarded as a good night out.”84 The ties between the revivals and theatre were strengthened by recent developments in church architecture. From the outside, the buildings were distinct; inside, however, churches and theatres looked remarkably similar. This was no coincidence: Belleville’s new Bridge Street Methodist Church, for example, had been designed by George Martel Miller, supervising architect of Toronto’s Massey Hall. The amphitheatre layout that Miller applied to Bridge Street dominated American and Canadian church design in the late nineteenth century; simultaneously it gained popularity in theatre design. The church sanctuary was a square room, with the audience facing a platform raised above the ground floor. Where the Belleville theatre featured a proscenium arch to draw the eye to the stage, Bridge Street Methodist had a concave apse which bordered organ pipes rising majestically behind the choir. The choir sat behind and above the pulpit, distinguishing the spoken from the sung performance. The sightlines were excellent: the audience sat in pews that arced out from the pulpit on a floor that sloped up and away from the platform, allowing even those in the back seats a perfect view of

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the action on stage. If the floor was full, good seats remained upstairs, in a horseshoe-shaped gallery with rising steps reminiscent of opera house boxes. Bridge Street Methodist was beautifully lit by a brass and glass chandelier, with forty-eight gas jet burners, “said to be the handsomest in Ontario,” according to a report in the local newspaper. Everything had been done to ensure the comfort of the audience.85 Churches like this were typically the largest halls in the community, but that did not guarantee that there would be room for all. Bridge Street could comfortably accommodate 1500, with draw seats allowing for more. At the peak of the Crossley-Hunter meetings, however, ushers counted 2, 210 people in the building, with 300 to 400 standing.86 If one arrived early enough to grab a seat, the next job was to attract the attention of one of the ushers selling souvenir song-books. The hustle and bustle and easy chatter persisted until the pair stepped onto the platform. Hunter began with a welcome, warming the crowd with a few jokes. Soon, however, tears of sadness replaced tears of laughter as Hunter read “The Heavenly Railroad.” Crossley broke the stillness with a quiet song and more stories, and then ended the evening, too soon for most in the audience. Members of the crowd exited the sanctuary, humming the catchy melody they had just heard. At their workplace the next day, they might share the events of the previous evening with their fellow employees and encourage them to go to see the show for themselves. The evangelists also sold various items as souvenirs. Hunter apparently invested considerable energy in writing an autobiography, with an eye to publication.87 In addition to his song book, Crossley marketed Practical Talks on Important Themes, a book with a style and content mirroring those of the evangelists’ services.88 It included advice on everything from how to dress with propriety to writing a will. Crossley was not just an evangelist, he was a Protestant authority, an expert on all facets of life. Readers wanted to know his opinion on a variety of issues. Newspaper advertisements notified the public that cabinet photos of the esteemed revivalists could be purchased at local stores. Crossley and Hunter’s reputation for staging exciting soul-saving revival shows helped to bring capacity crowds to sanctuaries throughout English Canada and the United States. It also brought them unrivalled fame. In the late nineteenth century, no single actor dominated English-speaking Canadian theatres, and partisan dailies presented either hagiographical or acrimonious depictions of the country’s political leaders. Few could compete with the respect accorded to God’s spokesmen by many newspapers. The evangelists, for their part, eagerly cultivated this celebrity status. In 1889, a

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journalist for the Hamilton Spectator underlined the similarities between the image of the evangelist and that of a theatre impresario, observing that Hunter “doesn’t look one bit like a minister. His face is smooth shaven except for a diminutive black moustache. His black suit was the perfection of cut and fit and his boots were exquisitely made. His hair is black and when seen on the street in ordinary attire the suspicion would be apt to arise that he was the advance agent of a theatrical troupe.”89 The consumer culture of late nineteenth-century English Canada celebrated the possibilities for creating an identity through the purchase of goods such as clothing. In the past, attire had reinforced the wearer’s status in a hierarchical society where people knew one another. By the late 1800s, people living in anonymous cities could obscure their job, their class, and their region, reinventing themselves with the purchase of a suit. Hunter was a minister who chose not to look like one. As in Hamilton, Crossley and Hunter were frequently the “talk of the town.” After their departure from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, a reporter observed: “In almost every house which I have entered, I have heard their names mentioned with delight. Their portraits are to be seen in many parlours.”90 In the homes of Roman Catholics, a saint might watch over the family from a hallowed section of the wall. Some of their evangelical Protestant neighbours reserved the same space for their religious heroes, Crossley and Hunter. Their portrait served as a memento of the revival services, and as a symbol of Christian faith – especially if the evangelists had helped bring about the conversion of one in the home. With Crossley and Hunter’s portraits on the wall, their songbook on the parlour organ, and Practical Talks on a side-table, Canadians brought the evangelists’ religious message out of the church and into their everyday lives. To those who lived in the home, these objects were reminders of the ways in which the evangelists’ work had changed their lives. To visitors, the portraits and books were a witness to the Christian character of the occupants. By producing objects that could be sold in the marketplace of culture, Crossley and Hunter turned the purchasing of goods into a religious act. Through the integration of their pictures and writings into the lives of Canadians, the evangelists created domestic environments that referenced the divine. Turning secular objects into something religious, they infused sacred meaning into everyday life. It was one more step in their goal of making Canada a Christian nation. Like present-day celebrities, Crossley and Hunter received mail and gifts from appreciative admirers. The people of Ottawa in 1888 were especially beneficent – they could not forget the prime minister’s

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conversion. In Canada’s capital city, the evangelists each received a fur coat and cap and other gifts valuing, according to one reporter’s estimate, “between $200 and $300.” The evangelists were remembered in other ways as well. In the summer of 1891, newspapers announced the opening of the “Crossley Hunter Methodist Church, South Dorchester.”91 And in 1897, the newly constructed “Crossley and Hunter Central Methodist Church” was opened in St. Thomas, Ontario, the evangelists’ home town.92 The defining moment in their development as evangelist-celebrities came with the apparent conversion of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald. In the years that followed, newspaper reporters pressed for details of the relationship between the revivalists and their special convert, and Hunter gladly provided the particulars of the event. Hunter also made a calculated adjustment to his countenance which merited comment. Reporting an interview with Hunter, during which Macdonald’s change of heart was addressed, a journalist in Winnipeg noted that “there is a striking resemblance between Mr. Hunter’s physiognomy, since he has divested himself of his moustache and that of portraits of Sir John taken when he was a young man … And by the way the evangelist communicated the fact that he was first known as ‘John A.,’ although he is now known as ‘John E.,’ the second name not being given him at baptism, but the first ‘John A.’” Hunter knew good publicity when he saw it, and he spared no opportunity in highlighting the coincidence.93 He was equally willing to divulge other details of his personal life, and the public, for its part, was eager to know them. Like modernday politicians and celebrities, every aspect of the evangelists’ lives became a subject of interest. Interviews frequently focused on Crossley and Hunter’s eating and exercise habits. On other occasions, readers were treated to a thorough sketch of the celebrities’ hometown and their house. One reporter portrayed the city of St. Thomas as a near Eden and the Hunter home as a lighthouse of righteousness to the community. Crossley, “our bachelor friend,” was not forgotten; he was “one of the family,” and made himself so useful around the Hunter home “that some day some jolly good girl will find in him a husband ready to hand without the trouble of having to ‘break him in.’”94 Crossley’s bachelorhood was the subject of frequent discussion. His eligibility evidently made him the interest of many young women across the continent. Crossley enjoyed the attention and often brought the subject up. Recognizing themselves as objects of sexual attraction, the evangelists used the emotions to ensure the attendance of large audiences, where women were often the majority.95

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Many women were eager to sit as close as possible to the celebrities. The conduct of the audience was not unlike a modern pop concert. Chaos resulted, for instance, when women were restricted to the gallery of Brantford, Ontario’s Wellington Methodist Church. A reporter noted that when the balcony was filled, the women “held an impromptu overflow assembly around the doors leading to the body of the church [where] they stood and hustled one another.” At eight o’clock Hunter finally “gave the word that the ladies might be admitted … in an instant the crowd rushed in pell mell and the edifice was filled to its utmost capacity.”96 A similar situation developed at the final service in Kingston in 1889. Five minutes after the doors to Sydenham Street Methodist Church were opened, the gallery was full. “Then the dear ladies banked themselves against the door, waiting so patiently for the time when they could crowd on the main floor,” a reporter observed. “It was the final night! Theatre goers know what that means.”97 By cultivating their celebrity status and drawing on forms of commercial culture, Crossley and Hunter furthered their goal of converting late nineteenth-century English-speaking Canadians and Christianizing society. They were content to use worldly means for heavenly purposes, and their theatrical approach to evangelism drew audiences of all classes and ages. Some of them experienced conversion, leaving the revival ready to live a Christian life and to help bring about the evangelists’ vision of a country devoted to Protestant principles. The evangelists could not have done it without the help of local organizing teams. Key to putting on a good show and to drawing potential converts was careful planning. In the late nineteenth century, revival coordinators followed the trail blazed by D.L. Moody. Moody had been a successful shoe salesman before he took up preaching. He recognized the importance of sound business practices and worked closely with several prosperous businessmen. His campaigns involved careful preparation, cooperation of host churches, and generous publicity.98 English-speaking Canadian Protestant evangelists also borrowed from prevailing business practices to ensure the success of their revival services. Assembling an evangelistic campaign took planning, starting years in advance. Crossley and Hunter’s campaign in Kingston in 1889, for example, began in February, 1887 when the official board of Kingston’s Sydenham Street Methodist Church initiated a correspondence with the evangelists in the hope of securing their services. In May the minister reported that the evangelists were booked solid. Letters were sent back and forth, but a suitable date proved elusive. In February 1889 the Sydenham Street board passed another motion

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requesting Crossley and Hunter’s services; this time they asked for October. The members of the board were relieved when the evangelists arrived in late September, two and a half years after the board had sent its initial request.99 The revival framework was assembled by local ministers in the months leading up to the campaign. They organized special services to prepare the hearts of those interested in conversion and meetings where lay workers were instructed in the most productive manner of bringing penitents to salvation. The vigour with which these preparations were undertaken often determined the success or failure of an evangelistic campaign. In some cases a productive campaign had little to do with the evangelist. The speaker’s job was to reap what others had sown – to bring to conversion people who had been brought to the churches and schooled in the way of salvation by local ministers.100 Lay men and women then built on this foundation, organizing committees which set to work on various tasks. At Sydenham Street Methodist in Kingston, the Board of Trustees commissioned a committee “to look after matting at Front door – covering carpet and a gas lamp in front of church in view of the Evangelists Crossley and Hunter coming.”101 Visitors were expected, so the people of Sydenham Street Methodist wanted their sanctuary to be in perfect order for the crowds. Invitations were sent to the other Kingston churches; after all, this was a community affair. The Kingston Daily British Whig recorded the proceedings as they unfolded in the autumn of 1889. Following established protocol, it announced that the evangelistic meetings “will be in charge of a committee consisting of one clergyman and one layman from each congregation. A finance committee … will have full control.”102 Modest advertisements were placed in the newspaper. And a venue was chosen, usually the largest Methodist church in the community. By the time the evangelists arrived, the construction of the revival stage was complete. All that was needed was an audience. From the beginning, Crossley and Hunter aimed for mass appeal by ensuring that their services were “union” in character. Methodists were central; Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregational churches also lent assistance, often under the aegis of the Evangelical Alliance.103 Garnering this kind of support proved relatively easy in the late nineteenth century. Protestants held their own congregational affiliation but recognized that they shared a common faith with friends and neighbours. Mainstream congregations exchanged pulpits, organized joint Sunday School picnics, and celebrated milestones and anniversaries together. They were partners in the task of Christianizing Canadian society. At the closing service of the 1889 Kingston campaign,

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Hunter underscored the sense of unity among the mainstream churches and injected a note of humour by deliberately confusing the clergy and their various denominations. The evangelist even introduced the host Methodist minister, for instance, as “Father Carson,” who was attending the service as the representative of “the Roman Catholic church.”104 Interdenominational support was important for another reason. The success of the services (when measured in numbers of participants) increased proportionately to the involvement of each denomination. By appealing to nearly every Protestant church in town, the evangelists ensured that they could fill one of the sanctuaries each evening. Success in evangelistic campaigns, like success in the world of business, was measured in numbers. If it mattered, it could be counted. The evangelists’ income from a campaign was often published in the newspaper after the final service. In Kingston, for example, the collection for the final evening was $457.105 Often called a “love offering,” the closing night collection was standard practice; at the end of the campaign, women and men rated the meetings and gave what they thought the evangelists were worth. Along with the sale of Crossley’s hymnbook, the “love offering” was the evangelists’ chief source of income; no guarantee was given by the host churches, and all travel and hotel expenses were borne by the revivalists. While their income was in line with that of other prestigious speakers, it was nevertheless considerable for late nineteenth-century ministers.106 Their charitable work testified to their wealth. With the proceeds from their campaigns, Crossley and Hunter became benefactors to various institutions. They gave a considerable sum toward the construction of the Crossley and Hunter Central Methodist Church in St. Thomas. They also purchased islands in Muskoka – which soon came to be known as “Preachers’ Islands” or “Holy Islands” – built several cottages, and offered these to various clergymen for a month in the summer.107 At Crossley’s death in 1934, his estate was probated at $62,000, a remarkable amount for a man of the cloth. His lifestyle had been frugal and this helps explain the size of the estate, much of which was given to the United Church and charitable organizations. The evangelistic business had been good to Crossley, and he was ready to return that kindness.

the response: from railwaymen to the prime minister Crossley and Hunter were also successful because of the support of local newspapers. The daily and weekly press thrived and expanded

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during the late nineteenth century: circulation for the Toronto Telegram, to cite one example, increased from 5,000 in 1878 to 25,000 in 1889.108 As a result of its virtual monopoly on news, argues historian Paul Rutherford, “the press, in effect, created public opinion, the force which came to justify political authority throughout Canada.” Ministers took note. “Everywhere,” observes Rutherford, “the cleric had to live with the uneasy reality that a potent influence upon the minds of the faithful was the secular voice of the press.”109 In fact, the clergy had little to worry about; the late nineteenthcentury press was hardly “secular.” True, the considerable attention given to plays, balls, and sports might have been a cause for concern, but Christianity was an even better draw. Publishers knew what was good for business, and, in the name of both public edification and newspaper sales, they went out of their way to support mainstream Protestantism. For instance, in 1891, the Toronto Daily Mail sought to boost its circulation by running a contest to determine Toronto’s most popular preacher. Each day the paper published the returns, along with letters from supporters who touted their ministers in terms reserved today for celebrities in sport and entertainment. During the opening weeks the lead changed hands several times, but a flood of entries as the event drew to a close made Joseph Wild of Bond Street Congregational Church the city’s apparent favourite. The event was so successful that the Mail soon began similar campaigns for politicians and military figures.110 In this and various other ways, ministers and journalists drew on each other’s power for their mutual benefit. Most newspaper editors viewed the work of the churches in a positive light. “Our improved circumstances,” observed an editor at the London, Ontario Advertiser in 1893, “are the results of the religious influence, enlarging and developing our better nature, and lifting humanity higher and higher day by day.” Championing themselves as the moral guardians of society, editors printed temperance tracts, morality tales, and Sunday School lessons in an attempt to ensure that the moral uplift of Englishspeaking Canadians continued.111 Crossley and Hunter shared this goal. As a result, most newspaper editors threw their support behind the evangelists. Front page headlines and portraits of the evangelists frequently greeted their arrival to a city. Detailed coverage of the revivalists’ sermons, often on the front page, served to advertise the service and preach to the truant reader at the same time. “Notes” at the bottom of articles provided times and locations for future meetings. The evangelists knew that the press built audiences as effectively as word of mouth and that the newspapers were their most powerful allies. With this in mind,

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they supplied press releases with biographical information to be published the day before their campaigns began. They also took pains to please the attending journalists, providing them with the best seats in the house and complimentary song books, giving interviews, publicly praising their articles, and encouraging the audience to buy copies of their newspapers.112 The evangelists rarely advertised because they did not need to. From time to time, however, the editor of a local daily proved to be unsupportive, and Crossley and Hunter had to pay to get into the paper. The advertisements they used spoke volumes about their self-image. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, two new styles of advertising were emerging. The approach popularized by entertainment impresario P.T. Barnum borrowed from peddlers of patent medicine. These advertisements used a variety of typefaces, plenty of space, and extensive ornamentation to grab readers’ attention. The Salvation Army adopted this approach, and along with their banners, uniforms, and brass bands, drew thousands to their fledgling movement. John E. Powers, advertising manager of Wanamaker’s, Philadelphia’s innovative department store, pioneered a different style. Following the lead of the majority of earlier ads, which were little more than announcements, Powers’s simple advertisements outlined the availability, quality, and price of a good. Treating the customer as a rational person who required information in order to make the proper decision, Powers’s “reason-why” advertising supplied the reasons why an item was worth buying. Crossley and Hunter followed this style. Placed among other goods and services, their brief announcements highlighted the “Evangelistic Services” being led by revivalists and provided the time and place. This approach to marketing was in keeping with the sponsoring churches’ genteel image. In a society where mainstream Protestants exercised considerable power, the evangelists were rarely desperate for attention. That approach could be left to fledgling groups such as the Salvationists.113 At the same time, the evangelists understood that accounts of their services needed to be supplemented with elements that would grab readers’ attention. Historians have interpreted religious controversy as a sign of the decline of religious vitality in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century English Canada.114 But by creating controversy, Crossley and Hunter made themselves news and furthered their cause. With debate came publicity, with publicity came spectators, and with spectators came hearts and habits that might be changed. The evangelists’ campaign in Hamilton in 1889 offers insight into their strategy. Fresh from their success in Kingston, Crossley and Hunter arrived in the city of approximately 40,000 in November of

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1889 and announced that this was “going to be a good old-fashioned revival meeting.”115 That seemed to be the case, at least initially. The campaign began with the Hamilton Spectator supplying verbatim accounts of the services and offering glib assessments of the number of converts each evening. The newspaper’s response during the first week was cooler than the evangelists were used to, but the Spectator seemed to endorse the services nonetheless. By the second week, however, the newspaper’s tacit support had come to an end. During the third and fourth weeks, the Spectator ignored the evangelists. Hamiltonians did not seem interested in the campaign; the crowds were smaller than usual. Then, suddenly, the attendance increased, and reports and references to the evangelistic meetings could be found throughout the newspaper. What had changed? The coverage began anew after Crossley and Hunter orchestrated a controversy over the issue of dancing. The evangelists deliberately provoked Hamiltonians: Crossley with a sermon on the dangers of the dance, and Hunter with comments that dancing masters were “spider-legged dudes” who preyed on the virtue of innocent young women. The response was swift: the next day, a Spectator reporter interviewed Hamiltonians for their reaction. One “old Methodist” remarked that the protracted meetings he used to attend caused “more voluptuousness and sensuality than dances do.” The following day the newspaper observed cheekily that “one of the ‘spider-legged dudes’ wants to measure calves with Evangelist Hunter, the loser to buy tickets to the Masonic ball for both.” Advertisers got in the act, with slogans like “we dance attendance on customers.” The Dundas Banner, for its part, observed that “dancing is not so very wicked, that is, provided one knows how to dance.”116 Meanwhile, back in Hamilton, Charlie Watts, a “secularist orator and editor of Secular Thought,” arrived to give two lectures, both of which garnered extensive front page coverage. But instead of addressing his own subject, Watts focused his attention on the “theological tramps” holding evangelistic services in the nearby church, giving Crossley and Hunter further copy. The following evening Watts continued on the theme. Referring to a letter Hunter had read, in which an avowed atheist supported the evangelist’s criticisms of the dance, Watts contended that the note was most likely “an emanation from the fanatical brain of the revivalist himself.” At this, a man near the front jumped to his feet, claiming to know the author. When Watts demanded a name, and the man revealed that he had written the letter, the embarrassed secularist changed the subject. Crossley and Hunter could not have crafted a finer outcome. Predictably, the situation in Hamilton intensified after Crossley and Hunter

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devoted a meeting to the evils of card-playing, during which Hunter observed that “progressive euchre parties” were “progressing to hell.” The newspaper devoted editorials to the imbroglio on two separate occasions, and numerous letters (many in support of the evangelists) were written in response.117 In the battle with the Spectator, Crossley and Hunter appear to have lost, or had they? Half-way through their campaign, the newspaper had dismissed them as unworthy of attention. But that had changed after their outburst against dancing. Rather than retreating when it was clear the Spectator did not support their position, the evangelists charged forward. On several occasions, Hunter interrupted his opening monologue with a provocative remark about dancing, knowing his words would elicit a response from the newspaper. At one meeting, he goaded the reporters: “I can say anything I like to you. I am not afraid of you. I can see you reporters taking all this down. Now see that you take it down correctly.”118 As a result, the evangelists’ services received columns of ink, became the subject of several editorials and numerous letters to the newspaper, and the central topic at an atheist’s lecture. With the publicity came curious men and women, some of whom walked to the front of the sanctuary and kneeled at the rail. By the time the campaign closed, 840 conversions had been recorded.119 Who were these converts? Most of them, it is clear, had a previous connection to a Protestant church. Whether the venue was a Salvation Army “barracks” or a neo-Gothic Anglican cathedral, church attendance was common among late nineteenth-century Ontarians. As a result, Crossley and Hunter usually attracted those with prior religious affiliation. One newspaper had to remind readers that “sinners were particularly welcome” at the services.120 Frequently, children made up a large number of converts. For instance, during the Crossley-Hunter campaign in Thorold in 1893, approximately 20 per cent of converts were under age fourteen, and many were probably affiliated with the local Sunday Schools. Conversions were not the result of a crisis so much as a culmination of years of religious nurture in home and church. For young people reared in the faith since infancy, the revival offered an opportunity to publicly affirm their religious commitment and enter the church as members. What penitents needed was a catalyst – a personage of authority who would encourage them to make a decision at that very moment.121 Such was the case for the sons of a pious Baptist minister in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia. The sons of the Reverend Eliakim Newcomb Archibald had grown up and moved away without experiencing conversion, a cause of considerable concern to their father. Their return

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home to celebrate Christmas in 1897 corresponded with an evangelistic campaign in Lunenberg led by Crossley and Hunter. Both of Archibald’s sons attended the series of services and professed a conversion. As an overjoyed Archibald revealed to his diary, “it was a great day for us who had prayed so long and looked for their coming. They are both doing well and anticipate the ministry as their life work. O what a load is off our hearts! What joy to think that we are all in the Ark.”122 To Archibald’s delight, his sons had taken the opportunity, not only to convert, but also to declare their interest in following their father’s footsteps into the ministry. Crossley and Hunter appealed to converts from all socio-economic backgrounds. Later evangelists would target segments of the population. Crossley and Hunter’s goal was the Christianization of all of Canadian society, and for that to be accomplished, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, had to be reached with the message of conversion. In the late nineteenth century, industrialization and urbanization had resulted in an increasingly stratified society. Protestant churches attempted to act as agencies of social solidarity, organizing city missions and supporting welfare endeavours. These efforts did little, however, to keep workers in mainstream sanctuaries. The Methodist Church, for all intents and purposes, had become a middle- and upper-class denomination. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, recent immigrants from Britain, uncomfortable with the rarified atmosphere of Canadian Methodist services, often left for new sects like the Salvation Army or the Hornerites. Through revival services, Methodists hoped to stem the exodus, and sometimes the strategy worked.123 Working people were frequent attenders of Crossley-Hunter evangelistic campaigns. The evangelists were obviously comfortable among workers. They were openly admired in their home church, which was described in an 1895 article in the local newspaper as “a working man’s church pure and simple.”124 Members of this class responded positively to the evangelists in other cities as well. In Thorold, Ontario’s “Great Revival” of 1893, during which 400 were converted in a town of 2,000, proportionately more workers than middle-class people professed conversion, including many workingclass heads of families. Among young people as well, working-class men and women outnumbered their middle-class counterparts. The work of Crossley and Hunter helped rebalance the socio-economic profile of Thorold’s churches.125 In other towns, however, active church participants were of the upper and middle classes. With few exceptions, economically dominant

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men held a virtual monopoly on mainstream church power in late nineteenth-century English Canada. Crossley and Hunter were well aware of this fact. Indeed, the evangelists did their best to add to the ranks of wealthy converts. Hunter made a point of personally greeting influential members of his audience, as in Belleville in 1888, where the evangelist stepped off the platform to welcome member of parliament, and future prime minister, Mackenzie Bowell. When one of these number became a convert, the rewards were many. Prime Minister Macdonald’s profession of faith in Ottawa set a seal of approval on Crossley and Hunter’s work and added to their considerable fame.126 The evangelists also went out of their way to encourage less illustrious church supporters. Crossley and Hunter applauded especially those women who were attempting to reform society through temperance and church-sponsored organizations like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. According to Crossley, “These noble Christian women have done a great work in rescuing drunkards, restoring the abandoned … Noble army of ladies, march on to still greater victory!” Crossley also supported women’s work in the church. In a chapter in his Practical Talks titled “The Question of Women Speaking,” Crossley forcefully presented a defence of women’s ministry. In his opinion, there were no biblical prerogatives barring women from active positions in the church. Second, he pointed to verses which indicated that women should and did preach, pray, and prophesy to the edification of the early church. Third, he considered women’s immeasurable contributions to temperance and other reform movements. He ended the chapter with a condemnation of all who would silence women’s voices: “To say that the Bible forbids women to speak and pray in public is a misrepresentation of [Saint] Paul, a libel on Christianity and society, a slander on God and His Church, and an outrage on women and our homes, which intelligent men of spirit must resent.”127 Crossley’s progressive notions of the equality of the sexes clashed with the more traditional views of Hunter. During an interview in Thorold, Hunter admitted that he “never could favour women preachers … I would not want my wife to preach.”128 His attitude was manifested in their services where opportunities to promote women were missed and even rebuffed. In Belleville in 1888, the newspaper announced the coming of a “lady evangelist” during the Crossley-Hunter campaign, but the promised appearance never materialized. A few days later, a service focusing on the wctu featured women on the platform, but they were conspicuously silent.129 The evangelists limited the involvement of women in their meetings

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because their primary focus was men, who formed a minority of church members. They restricted women’s seating, held special meetings for men only, and preached a masculinized version of Christianity in an attempt to redress the imbalance. Looked at through the lens of gender, Crossley and Hunter’s meetings give the appearance of church membership drives for men, held at a distance from the “feminized Christianity” of Sunday morning church services. The so-called “feminization of the church” had been a concern of North American clergy for some time. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, notions of manliness had been closely tied to social usefulness, manifested in a commitment to church and society. With the emergence of commercial capitalism, gender definitions had shifted, so that value was placed, not on the community and cooperation, but on the individual and competition.130 Young men living in boarding houses developed their own notions of manhood, ideas in keeping with the enterprising spirit of the day. To be a man was to be strong and athletic, and young men exercised in gyms and kept careful track of their progress, resulting in a cult of physical measurement that equated physical vigour with strength of character.131 They also aspired to be bold and daring and engaged in thrill-seeking activities in the tavern or on the street. Looking at late nineteenthcentury small-town Ontario, Lynn Marks observes that single young men “preferred the male bonding of street corner and hotel bar to the domestic family circle. Prowess in drinking and gambling and the excitement of blood sports were part of this ideal of masculinity,”132 along with disdain for churches and churchgoers. As a result, the “problem of young men” was of central concern to respectable folk. The leaders of English Canada saw adolescence as a time when young men made decisions that would impact the rest of their lives. It was not enough to hope that, away from their parents but not yet domesticated by a wife, they could negotiate this period alone. In response, church and civic leaders created a host of organizations and associations. Foremost among these were the Young Men’s Christian Associations, offering lectures and reading rooms for the mind and competitive sports for the body. They hoped that the baseball diamond would replace the tavern as the place where young men displayed manliness, formed associations, and built character. This new notion of manliness came to be known as “muscular Christianity.” The term was coined in 1857 by a reviewer of English writer Charles Kingsley who, along with his friend Thomas Hughes, articulated the ways in which sports and Christianity could create true men. In Canada, Presbyterian minister Charles William Gordon, writing under the pseudonym “Ralph Connor,” brought muscular

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Christianity to life in a Canadian context. The heroes of Gordon’s The Sky Pilot (1899) and The Man from Glengarry (1901) were big, strong, Anglo-Saxon men willing to stand up for their Christian faith.133 Crossley and Hunter held themselves up as Christian men worthy of emulation. They were eager to counter the notion that churches were the domain of women, an impression that seemed especially pronounced at the end of the nineteenth century. To bring men back into the church the evangelists adopted a two-pronged strategy. First, they challenged prevailing notions of masculinity, so that those attributes or actions which were reserved for male self-expression appeared childish and moronic. For instance, those unable to conquer the tobacco habit were accused of weakness. According to Crossley, “it takes a child to learn to use tobacco, but it takes a man to quit it. If you use the weed, and have enough manhood left to stop, assert it, and strike for liberty.”134 Second, the evangelists modeled ostensible Christian manliness for their audiences. Hunter seemed to relish opportunities to confront others face-to-face. In Kingston in 1889, Hunter challenged a group of young men creating commotion in the gallery. A journalist reported that “Mr. Hunter said … he would only just reprove them. ‘But if that will not do,’ said the speaker, ‘look out for me. I will come down on you like a sledge hammer.’”135 This display offers a glimpse into a popular turn-of-the-century social and intellectual movement that Jackson Lears has labelled “antimodern militarism.” Calling for a revival of martial spirit and replete with military images, the movement grew out of the American Civil War, “the central event of this generation’s lives,” according to another observer.136 In Britain, the army’s success in the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny led to a similar increase in Christian militarism. With ties to Britain and the United States, Canada felt the martial spirit as well. Drawing on the movement for their own purposes, Crossley and Hunter’s services featured militaristic songs such as “Don’t Go Near the Bar-room Brother,” sung to the popular Civil War air, “Just Before the Battle, Mother.”137 For his part, Hunter often referred to converts as soldiers “coming to the front and heroically enlisting for the standing army of the King of Kings.”138 These kinds of appeals were effective with young men. Their elders, however, deserved a more nuanced message. As Lynn Marks points out, they were more comfortable in their mantle of masculinity, one “associated with respectability, and … linked to expectations surrounding the role of married men.” They were the “breadwinners and household heads, and as such they gained a certain status in the community.”139 In many cases, however, they were not leaders in their churches. In the late 1800s, the church found itself competing

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against the business world, as well as men’s fraternal movements, sports associations, and labour unions, for the allegiance of society’s most successful men. Crossley and Hunter wanted to show them that the church could meet their needs as well. Key to their strategy were men’s meetings, frequently held during the opening days of their evangelistic campaigns and featuring themes like “Rest.” Late nineteenth-century men, who had grown up doing physical labour on farms but now found themselves working in offices, were often concerned with their physical decline. Health-care specialists such as George Beard outlined the problem in 1881 in American Nervousness, Its Causes and Consequences, and quack-medicine peddlers promised to cure it with elixirs advertised on the front pages of newspapers. Historian Michael Bliss has commented that “worry … was the everyday state of mind of the man in business” at the turn of the century.140 The evangelists promised that the “rest” that came with a conversion to Christ would calm these anxieties. Men who attended these meetings were encouraged to acknowledge their worries, and revival services frequently witnessed remarkable displays of emotion. The evangelists encouraged these tears. In The Manliness of Christ (1879) Thomas Hughes had argued that feminine qualities such as “humiliation” and “tenderness and thoughtfulness for others” were in fact a central component of muscular Christianity. It took a man to admit his fears, just as it took a man to show courage and make a decision for Christ. Did anything change as a result of these conversions, or the conversions of the women and children? Church membership rolls certainly grew, spiking each time the evangelists visited a congregation.141 The question was posed occasionally by Crossley and Hunter’s contemporaries, Lynne Marks notes, some of whom doubted that a revival conversion translated into a lasting Christian commitment. The evangelists countered by claiming that their converts stood the test of time, and Marks agrees. “The majority of the converts who joined Thorold’s Methodist church” in 1893, she notes, “seem to have remained church members for at least five years following the revival.”142

conclusion As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, Crossley and Hunter soldiered on, leading revivals and bringing men and women to conversion. Finally, in 1910, Canada’s most celebrated revival team disbanded. Hunter was a spent force. The previous year he had developed what contemporaries called “shaking palsy” – probably

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Parkinson’s disease – which had killed his father and two aunts. The revival “general” quietly retired to his home and died nine years later. According to prominent Methodist leader S.D. Chown, Hunter’s passion for saving souls had worn out “his nervous and physical constitution long before his sun ordinarily should have set.”143 Crossley continued in the work for several more years, preaching what newspapers referred to as the “old time religion.”144 His central message changed little from the late nineteenth century. Along with Hunter, Crossley had encouraged men, women, and children to experience a conversion to Christ. In order to attract Englishspeaking Canadians to this message, the evangelists had drawn on contemporary forms of commercial culture. The late nineteenth century had witnessed the increasing popularity of theatrical shows, and Crossley and Hunter responded by making their services entertaining performances. Their appropriation of worldly forms for sacred purposes had represented an attempt to saturate public life with the sacred: to provide religious recreation that would supplant the secular kind. Christians could both worship and play at the same time, and thereby remain sanctified, fit for use by God in the world. Emulating the very institution they wished to destroy, their showmanship had been more convincing, and often more appealing, than the acting taking place in the nearby theatre. Following standard business practice, these productions had been carefully organized and geared to appeal to a wide audience. When interest had seemed to wane, the evangelists regained the spotlight by creating controversy, and publicized it all through the press, their influential ally. In the end, the results of their revivalism were ambiguous. The evangelists had been successful in bringing about the conversions of thousands of people in cities such as Belleville, Ontario, but they had been less adept at controlling the behaviour of those converts. The theatre opposite Bridge Street Methodist reopened after the evangelists’ departure, and the local churchgoers quietly renewed their friendship with the theatre’s owners. As the number of leisure options increased, the evangelists’ attempted monopoly of entertainment became unsustainable. In the opening decades of the twentieth century, other evangelists emerged with new ways to commodify the faith. In 1908, a young man named Oswald J. Smith attended a Crossley-Hunter service in Huntsville, Ontario and left inspired. Two decades later Crossley sat in the audience while Smith stood on the platform, preaching the message of conversion.

2 “Anything at all to get a crowd” Oswald J. Smith and Fundamentalist Revivalism between the Wars

On a Sunday evening in September 1928, evangelist Oswald J. Smith stood on the platform of Toronto’s Massey Hall and announced the establishment of the “Cosmopolitan Tabernacle,” later named the “Peoples Church.” The institution, Smith declared, would be “a permanent evangelistic centre, standing pre-eminently for the conversion of souls, the edification of believers and world-wide evangelism.” Smith launched his new church with a sermon describing the “last days” and the coming of the Messiah, and concluded his message with an altar call. According to a report in the Toronto Globe, “a large number” responded to the “impassioned evangelical appeal at the close.”1 Smith’s goal was to spread what he called the “old-fashioned gospel” – a message of repentance for sin, regeneration in Christ, and reformation through the Holy Spirit, made urgent by Christ’s imminent return to Earth and the judgment of humanity that would follow. While this message was, according to the evangelist, rooted in the past, his methods for the spreading of this gospel were modern and entrepreneurial. In an attempt to reach the greatest number of people, Smith used all the resources of his day, presenting his sermons on sin and salvation in a format that drew upon early twentiethcentury commercial culture. The meetings were held in Massey Hall, the venue for Toronto’s major entertainment events. Advertisements for the services dominated the church pages of Toronto’s newspapers and included pictures of the special guest preacher, American evangelist Paul Rader. Rader’s sermons, advertisements proclaimed,

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would feature tales of his “pugilistic encounters” during “his early life in the Wild West.”2 Those who attended the opening meeting received free copies of one of Rader’s latest books, The Woman With the Hatchet Face. Music was a central attraction: the services featured selections by a mass choir and orchestra, supplemented with performances on the harp and trombone. Evidence from the city’s major newspapers indicates that Torontonians responded positively to this form of popular religion – a combination of an old-fashioned message and modern methods of presentation. During this evangelistic campaign, nightly audiences of more than 2, 500 were typical. Smith’s revivals were both similar to and different from those that had gone before. In the late nineteenth century, Crossley and Hunter had enjoyed considerable prestige as representatives of the powerful mainstream church establishment. They had used elements of the nascent commercial culture to further the reach of Protestantism in an attempt to make Canada God’s Dominion. But Canada had changed, and the new reality required new strategies to market the gospel. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Oswald J. Smith stood out as an innovative religious leader who adopted the tactics of merchants of a maturing commercial culture to draw crowds to his sermons on sin and salvation. In contrast to Crossley and Hunter, Smith was the leader of a fledgling work that was unattached to a mainstream church. As a result, he could not take his authority for granted and had to work alone to aggressively market his message using any tool he could find.3

the evangelist: oswald j. smith Oswald Jeffrey Smith was one of Canada’s foremost evangelists in the first half of the twentieth century. Over the course of his eightyyear career (he lived to be 96) Smith preached more than 12,000 sermons in 80 countries, wrote 35 books which were translated into 128 languages, and published 1,200 poems, of which 100 were set to music. He was acclaimed within conservative evangelical ranks by no less an authority than Billy Graham, who acknowledged Smith as “one of the greatest evangelists of all time.” A single-minded “entrepreneur in religion,” Smith focused all of his considerable energies on reaching men and women with his message of conversion.4 Smith was born in 1889. His father operated train stations for Canada’s railway companies, and the family moved frequently to different locations along the lines. A sensitive boy, Oswald was deeply affected when his ten-year-old sister died after a lengthy illness. Though the Smiths were not a religious family, Oswald became

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concerned with questions about death and God. When reports of the 1906 Torrey and Alexander revival in Toronto reached his community, Oswald expressed an interest in hearing the evangelists for himself. He made the journey to Toronto with his brother and attended the meetings for several days.5 A successor to Dwight L. Moody, Reuben Torrey was one of several conservatives who fused piety with what he viewed to be correct belief. Using a literal reading of the Bible, Torrey defended traditional nineteenth-century doctrine and attacked higher criticism. He drew thousands to his meetings in Toronto, where he condemned personal sin and encouraged conversion.6 Singer and songleader Charles Alexander, a fellow American, provided the musical accompaniment. On the final day of the 1906 campaign, Torrey preached from Isaiah 53:5, an Old Testament passage that he believed foretold Christ’s crucifixion. The evangelist read the verses with emphasis: “he was wounded for my transgressions, he was bruised for my iniquities; the chastisement of my peace was upon him, and with his stripes I am healed.” Feeling complicit in Christ’s suffering and death, and hoping that he could be healed of sin, Smith answered Torrey’s call, shook the evangelist’s hand, and made his way to the “Inquiry Room.” There, he recalled later, a man came and spoke to me and then left. But I saw no light and got nowhere … Then suddenly it happened, I cannot explain it even today. I just bowed my head, put my face between my hands and in a moment the tears gushed through my fingers, and fell on the chair and there stole into my boyish heart a realization of the fact that the great change had taken place. Christ had entered and I was a new creature. I had been born again.7

From this moment, Smith devoted his life to evangelism. And at each step, he would use his own conversion in Torrey’s Massey Hall rally as a template for the conversion of others. Filled with religious enthusiasm and enraptured by the spectacle of the evangelistic campaign, Smith returned home, organized a Sunday School for local children, and began to dream of becoming a celebrity preacher. Recognizing his need for some religious training, he joined thousands of other young people who moved to Toronto and the opportunities it offered. As Smith made his way about the city, he would have noticed that the church spires that had dominated the city skyline were being challenged by factory chimneys. During the first two decades of the new century, Canadians enjoyed steady economic expansion. Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s optimistic prophecy that the twentieth century belonged to Canada was symptomatic of the

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outlook of his time. The country’s first news magazine, the Canadian Courier, declared in 1909 that “Canada is a perpetual Christmas Tree with a present for every son in the house.”8 In the years during and after the First World War, the economy continued to soar, and many Canadians shared in the prosperity. With increasing wealth came declining moral standards, or so it seemed. The industrial system allowed workers more leisure time, and Canadians spent it in trips to the movies and tours in motor cars. Opportunities for sexual experimentation appeared to increase, and cases of venereal disease, which became a problem among soldiers in Europe during World War I, also rose within the population at home. “New women” pushed the boundaries of “acceptable” behaviour, and some even smoked in public! Many were shocked by the apparent social decay.9 At a time of fast-paced change, Oswald Smith’s primary passion was traditional evangelical Protestantism. During the day he worked as a clerk, and in the evenings he attended the Toronto Bible Training School (tbts). The school had been created in the late nineteenth century by a group of conservative evangelicals concerned by the rising currency of Darwinian science and historical criticism of the Bible. Beginning in the 1870s these ideas had received sympathetic attention in theological colleges, and concerned Canadian and American conservative evangelicals from various denominations had responded by organizing conferences at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Here they discussed notions of dispensational premillennialism, biblical inerrancy, and the second coming, and in 1878 agreed on a statement of faith. A basis for the theology of many twentieth-century fundamentalists, including Smith, the “Articles of Belief” emphasized that the words of the Bible in its original form were inspired by God and that the apostasy of churches which adjusted belief to contemporary science would heighten until Christ’s Second Coming.10 Concerned conservative evangelicals also established schools and colleges. tbts had been organized in 1894 by a group of Toronto religious, business, and civic leaders, including mayor William Howland. With its explicit rejection of higher criticism and an emphasis on biblical training, evangelism, and missions, tbts had become the model for other schools founded in the first half of the twentieth century which offered an alternative to the liberal studies of theological colleges. Through these and other organizations conservative evangelicals maintained a sense of collegiality and common purpose.11 As the formation of tbts indicates, the evangelical consensus that had dominated Canadian Protestantism in Crossley and Hunter’s day was beginning to crack. As a result of conflicts concerning

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Darwinian science and biblical criticism, two different movements were emerging. Some Protestants accepted the new forms of learning and made adjustments to accommodate Christianity to science. These “liberals” believed that, since God worked through society, modern thinking should reflect God’s work in the world. Others Protestants, including those who organized tbts, reacted forcefully to the new ideas. Many of these “conservative evangelicals”12 argued that the theology that had resulted from the accommodation of the new learning had eroded traditional doctrines of sin and salvation and had substituted little in the way of hard truth. They argued that, in giving up the infallibility of the Bible, liberals had left no sure, objective ground for faith. Conservatives responded to the new theology with a renewed emphasis on what they believed were traditional nineteenth-century doctrines. This conservative evangelical movement, of which Smith was a part, drew from several sources, including nineteenth-century revivalism, the inerrancy of scripture, premillennial dispensationalist eschatology, common-sense philosophy, Keswick holiness, Scottish Common Sense philosophy, and the Calvinist emphasis on correct doctrine. Some of these conservatives came from a Calvinistic background; others were rooted in the Wesleyan holiness tradition. Demographics and class also played a role in the emergence of this movement: many urban elites embraced the new, liberal ideas while urban workers and rural farmers rejected them.13 In the 1920s, many conservative evangelicals would declare themselves “Fundamentalists.” The name was taken from The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, a series of twelve paperbacks written between 1910 and 1915 by leading British, American, and Canadian conservative Protestants. These authors responded to what they considered to be the threat of liberal theology by defending the basics of their faith: the inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth, Christ’s substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, and premillennial second coming.14 Many of these doctrines were emphasized at tbts during Smith’s time there. In addition to learning the basic tenets of conservative evangelicalism, Smith was able to make contacts with members of Toronto’s growing conservative evangelical network. Smith excelled at the school and gave the valedictory address at his graduation in 1912. The central doctrines of his emerging theology ran through the speech; he dismissed the challenges of the higher criticism and highlighted the importance of interdenominational cooperation and foreign missions.15 Eager to do full-time evangelistic work, Smith got involved in a variety of conservative evangelical endeavours and agencies. Moving

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frequently among organisations, jobs, and locations, his life mirrored the flux of conservative Protestantism in the early twentieth century. In 1907 in northern Ontario he worked as a colporteur, literally selling the gospel with the Upper Canadian Bible Society. His endeavours met with considerable success; according to one biographer, Smith sold more Bibles in Muskoka than any other salesman before him. In Kentucky in 1913, he travelled on horseback from village to village giving sermons. On Vancouver Island in 1919, he preached on street corners for the Salvation Army and sold Bibles with the Shantymen’s Christian Association. Returning to Toronto, he wrote and edited for the Evangelical Christian, a conservative evangelical publication created by Roland Bingham. Through his association with Bingham, the founder of Evangelical Publishers, the Sudan Interior Mission, and the Canadian Keswick Bible Conference,16 Smith was able to add to his many connections in the emerging North American conservative evangelical network. Smith pursued post-secondary education with a similar restlessness. Despite an obviously independent and entrepreneurial spirit, he coveted the influence accorded the ministers of the mainstream Protestant denominations. Hoping to become a Presbyterian minister, he enrolled in theology at the Presbyterian Manitoba College in Winnipeg but soon came to regret the decision. The college insisted that he make up for his lack of a high school diploma. Smith struggled with Hebrew and Greek. His fellow students were no help; they took to referring to their pietistic colleague as “the Parson.”17 Seeking an escape, Smith found it in Chicago at McCormack, a seminary of the Presbyterian Church of America. Once again he was badgered by fellow students for being too serious and mystical. But his seminary experience was tolerable because it offered numerous opportunities for outreach. Smith organized meetings in tents and on street corners and attended the services of some of the most talented evangelists of the day, including Billy Sunday and Paul Rader. In his second year of seminary, he was appointed pastor of South Chicago’s First Presbyterian Church. After four years of study, he was granted a certificate making him eligible for the Presbyterian ministry.18 Smith returned to Toronto in 1915 in search of a position and landed at Dale Presbyterian. It appeared to be a comfortable fit for the energetic young evangelist. Known as “The Athlete’s Church,” Dale was led by J.D. Morrow, a former sprinter with a penchant for publicity. In the midst of a building campaign, Morrow refused to cut his hair or wear his hat as long as his roofless church was open to sky. Once the building was completed, he drew audiences by advertising “monster services,” which featured exotic animals borrowed from the local zoo.19

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Morrow proved to be a major influence on Smith. Equally important to Smith’s development was deaconess Daisy Billings. One of many women of the period who exercised her considerable leadership talents through the church, Daisy was admired at Dale for her practicality and keen sense of humour. After a courtship of several months, Oswald and Daisy were married at Dale in 1916. But as the initial excitement passed, several problems emerged.20 Daisy was frustrated with the changes Smith was instituting at Dale, and she was not alone. Smith had taken over the church temporarily while Morrow served as a chaplain to Canadian soldiers and had shifted the emphasis from traditional worship to evangelism, upsetting many in the congregation. Smith had no interest in the dayto-day management of church affairs; all his energy was poured into revival services. He hung a banner behind the pulpit which challenged the congregants to “Get Right With God,” organized a small group for evangelism (which critics derisively labelled “Oswald Smith’s Soul-Saving Gang”), replaced the hymnal with gospel songs, and strode back and forth on the platform each Sunday preaching repentance and conversion. Some were delighted with the changes, but those accustomed to traditional Presbyterian worship were horrified. They demanded Smith’s resignation, and in 1917 he complied.21 Smith’s failure at Dale marked his departure from the mainstream establishment. Smith had hoped to use the considerable resources of the Presbyterian Church for the sake of evangelism at home and abroad. To this end he had trained at a Presbyterian seminary, taken a position in the Presbyterian Church, and, in addition, applied for overseas mission work. In each case, however, he had met with opposition. His fellow students had mocked him, his church had asked for his resignation, and the Presbyterian mission boards had rejected him on four separate occasions. Smith was told that his ill health made him a poor candidate for service overseas; his approach to evangelism may have been more of a problem.22 In the early decades of the twentieth century, English Canada’s mainstream Protestant churches were moving away from mass evangelistic meetings. The shift in emphasis was part of a wider movement that came to be known as the Social Gospel. Working through the churches, social gospel reformers combined nineteenth-century Protestant evangelicalism, scientific methods, and large-scale organization. Traditional mass evangelism was replaced by a new “scientific evangelism” that emphasized social reform, and individual spiritual development became a secondary emphasis as social gospel leaders like Methodist J.S. Woodsworth focused their energy on changing material conditions.

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The efforts of these reformers were in part a response to the influx of immigrants into Canada. From 1900 to 1920 immigration increased the Canadian population by a whopping 64 per cent. Many newcomers were from the Austro-Hungarian empire, as well as China and Japan, and their presence changed Canada from a British and French society to a European and partly Asian one. Some Canadians of British origin greeted the immigrants’ arrival with trepidation. Others responded more constructively, though perhaps no less fearfully, through the social gospel movement. Combining religion and patriotism, these reformers hoped to integrate the new arrivals into Canadian society. Their approach was summed up by Ralph Connor in his novel The Foreigner. Outlining his outreach program to immigrant children, a missionary pastor explained that he would “in short, do anything to make them good Christians and good Canadians, which is the same thing.”23 Others were not so sure. Many conservatives, for instance, were unhappy with the mainstream churches’ preoccupation with the social gospel. They believed that the focus on the ethical side of Christianity, along with the adoption of Darwinian science and higher criticism, had resulted in a loss of interest in issues of spiritual development. Like Smith, these conservative evangelicals left the mainstream churches for new movements, which sprouted like mushrooms in the opening decades of the twentieth century. Notable among these was the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which looked to Smith as one of its brightest stars in the 1920s. Founded in 1887 by Canadian Presbyterian minister Albert B. Simpson as a mission to evangelize the urban poor, the Alliance had become a popular church among both English-speaking Canadian and American evangelicals. Reflecting its roots in the holiness movement, the Alliance championed the pursuit of “entire sanctification” and especially divine healing. The leaders of the Alliance were also motivated by their belief in premillennialism and the “last days” in conducting aggressive missionary campaigns.24 Soon after his departure from Dale, Smith took charge of a fledgling independent church, which amalgamated in 1920 with a congregation associated with the Alliance. Both Smith and the Alliance benefited from the connection. Smith was introduced to Alliance fundraising practices, which he would later refine for use at his Peoples Church. The Alliance, in return, benefited numerically from Smith’s style of evangelism. Smith was not alone in his move from the mainstream church. In cities throughout North America, evangelicals frustrated by the perceived withdrawal of the churches from “soul-saving” missions were

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creating a new form of mass evangelism, organizing what they called “Gospel Tabernacles.” In the spirit of theatres on a vaudeville circuit, these churches hosted travelling evangelists who led revivals featuring entertaining gospel music and sensational preaching. In some ways, these campaigns had changed little from Crossley and Hunter’s day. In other ways, however, early twentieth-century conservative evangelism was different. The evangelist-actors who visited revivalsponsoring churches had been replaced by evangelists-in-residence who managed permanent centres of revivalism. The nineteenthcentury church’s appeal to all had been replaced by the Tabernacle’s efforts targeted to specific segments of the population. Those who attended found community in the Tabernacle clubs, programs, foreign missionary societies, magazines, and radio programs, all of which had been formed for the sake of evangelism. One of the most influential Tabernacle evangelists was Christian and Missionary Alliance leader Paul Rader, who directed the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle from 1922 to 1933. While studying in Chicago, Smith had been captivated by Rader’s innovative use of radio, jazz, and film (Rader even insisted that his deathbed and funeral be filmed) for evangelistic purposes. In the years that followed, Smith would model his ministry after that of Rader.25 Soon after taking over the Toronto Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation, Smith announced plans for a new building. As a result of his resourcefulness and enthusiasm, the Tabernacle was completed on schedule, opened in May 1922, and quickly paid off. Despite the structure, which was both ugly and uncomfortable, capacity crowds were commonplace. By 1926, claims one Alliance historian, Smith’s Tabernacle was “the largest evangelical church in Canada.”26 Smith’s energy and enthusiasm were infectious, and soon several other projects were underway, including a publishing house, a special mission to Jews (headed by an ex-rabbi), and “The Canadian Bible Institute” (an Alliance version of tbts) which was built on property adjacent to the Tabernacle.27 Much of the success of the Tabernacle could be attributed to the evangelists that Smith brought to his church. Some took over his pulpit while Smith was on preaching tours of Eastern Europe. On occasions when Smith was present, they were employed to draw a crowd. Before long, however, the continuous campaigns became a source of conflict. Frustration mounted among those who preferred a more settled church life, and Smith decided to move on. He led revivals throughout the eastern and southern United States, then settled in Los Angeles, where he took over another Alliance Tabernacle. Known as the “Magic City,” Los Angeles was the destination

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for hundreds of thousands of Americans in search of success, and nearby Hollywood was the source for much of American popular culture in this “Golden Age” of cinema. Impressed by the studios’ success, religious leaders used the techniques of Hollywood’s merchants of entertainment to attract Angelinos to their religious shows. Most famous among these entrepreneurs in religion was Canadianborn Aimee Semple McPherson, who had opened her Angelus Temple in 1923. An irenic Pentecostal who studiously avoided theological battles, McPherson staged weekly sermon-plays which drew Angelinos by the thousands. Smith’s approach was similarly entertaining, and in Los Angeles it brought him considerable attention. But he was convinced that God wanted him in Toronto.28 Smith returned to the city in 1928, and twenty-two years after being converted in Massey Hall, stood on its platform and launched his Peoples Church. In total, 2,500 attended the inaugural service, and the church was soon established with Smith as evangelist-in-residence. Two years later, the assembly joined forces with a small group that met in the empty St. James Square Presbyterian Church on Gerrard Street. In 1934, the congregation moved into a larger building in the heart of the city, the former Central Methodist Church at 100 Bloor Street East, where it remained until the 1950s.29 The Peoples Church was an interdenominational assembly. Smith’s vision for an evangelistic centre did not fit denominational boundaries; his appeal was to those who shared his passion for spreading the gospel. To this end he printed a monthly newspaper and organized a school, a missionary society, and a publishing house. Through these media, Smith propounded the basics of the now-established fundamentalist position, especially the doctrines of biblical inerrancy and dispensationalist premillennialism. Recognizing that audiences would quickly tire of his own preaching, he organized campaigns by the leading fundamentalists of the day. By the mid-1930s, according to one biographer, Smith stopped advertising, asked his radio listeners to stay at home so there would be room for newcomers, and frequently moved his meetings into Massey Hall so that all could be seated.30

the message: “reaching the unsaved for christ” Oswald Smith’s primary purpose as an evangelist was to bring about conversions to Christ. He had dedicated himself to this task in 1914, while ministering at First Presbyterian in Chicago. The twenty-five year old seminarian had listed seven goals for his church work; the first was “to reach the unsaved for Christ,”31 and it would be his

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primary objective for the rest of his life. His sermons, regardless of the declared topic, inevitably ended with an altar call. While consistently conversionist, his evangelistic messages also touched on contemporary concerns. Smith recognized that if religion was to be relevant, it had to address current issues. As a result, in the years following World War I, when Canadians were preoccupied with concerns regarding health, Smith joined his conversion appeals to sermons on healing. As anxieties mounted in the 1930s over another world war, Smith connected his message of salvation with sermons on the end of the world. Smith’s notion of conversion was firmly rooted in the fundamentalist tradition, which rejected the liberal Protestant practice of drawing on modern ideas to reinterpret older evangelical doctrines. As Smith saw it, the mission of the church was not to adjust Christianity to the world, but to present the immutable truth of the gospel – to “evangelize” the world. The message that Smith preached was based on the “Fundamentals of the Faith as expressed in the Articles of Belief of the Niagara Bible Conference.”32 Some evangelists carefully articulated and defended proper doctrine. But for Smith, theology was of little importance. He frequently ignored the careful constructions crafted by biblical scholars and theologians. His first biographer, Edwin Orr, noted approvingly that Smith attempted “to harmonize the positives of both calvinism and arminianism, while rejecting the negatives of both.”33 This easy accommodation of two diametrically opposed Protestant traditions would have driven a theologian to tears, but Smith was not one of them. He was uninterested in what he considered to be esoteric theological debates – these did little to bring men and women into a relationship with God. “About the doctrinal side I am not so much concerned,” he observed. “It is the experience that counts.”34 Smith’s gospel tract, “Five Things You Must Know,”35 outlined how individuals could experience salvation. First, he pointed out, “you must know that you are a sinner in the sight of God.” The end result of sinful living was a horrible death and eternal agony in hell. In contrast to nineteenth-century evangelists like Crossley and Hunter who eschewed fear as a catalyst to conversion, Smith frequently dwelt on the death-bed agonies of atheists like Voltaire, and on the further wrath that awaited those who descended into the depths of a fiery hell. Repentance should not be delayed, Smith counselled, because death could come at any time. “Make the decision before it is too late,” he would urge as he launched into the need for conversion.36 Smith “preached the blood.” His gospel tract pointed out that “your sins have been laid on Jesus … you can not save yourself …

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Jesus Christ alone can save you.”37 Smith believed that Christians were redeemed as a result of Christ’s willingness to shed his blood on the cross. Christ’s death was a substitutionary atonement for the sins of humanity and through it sinners were “saved” from the punishment they deserved and granted eternal life in Heaven. The message sounds almost clinical in this retelling, but it was highly emotional coming from Smith. The music sung in Smith’s services provides a better sense of his poignant conversion appeal. An avid writer of poetry as well as prose, Smith published over a thousand poems, many of which were set to music. One admirer referred to Smith as “The World’s Greatest Living Hymn Writer;”38 he was without doubt among Canada’s premier gospel song lyricists in the first half of the twentieth century. Smith’s best-known gospel song, “Then Jesus Came,” was typical in its evangelistic emphasis. Recorded by George Beverly Shea, who was still singing at campaigns led by his close friend Billy Graham in 1998, the song portrayed the healing of a beggar, a demon-possessed man, a leper, and finally the resurrection of Lazarus. In each case, the presence of Christ transformed sorrow and suffering into joy and comfort. The song closed with an evangelistic invitation to the listener: “So men today have found the Savior able/ They could not conquer passion, lust and sin/ Their broken hearts had left them sad and lonely/ Then Jesus came and dwelt Himself within/ When Jesus comes, the tears are wiped away/ He takes the gloom and fills the life with glory/ For all is changed when Jesus comes to stay.”39 “Then Jesus Came” was typical of Smith’s songs in its emphasis on conversion. At the same time it was unusual in its use of a thirdperson narrator; the majority of Smith’s songs spoke in the first person. For instance, his earliest songwriting success, “Saved!” declared: “Saved! Saved! Saved! – My sins are all forgiv’n;/ Christ is mine! I’m on my way to heav’n;/ Once a guilty sinner, lost, undone,/ Now a child of God, saved thro’ his Son.”40 In this gospel song, as in many others, Smith gave testimony to his intense personal relationship with God. “I just wanted to express my own personal experience of my salvation,”41 Smith had remarked. The observation could have been made concerning almost all his compositions. Smith’s use of gospel songs as a form of testimony echoed the conventions of nineteenth-century evangelical music. Smith looked back with longing to the revivals of Crossley and Hunter and, through his music, tried to recover something of the spirit of that time. Historian Susan Tamke notes that the lyrics of English gospel songs in the 1800s reflected a yearning for heaven and “an almost gnostic rejection of the world.”42 Similarly, Smith’s songs turned

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inward, away from the concerns of day-to-day life. Often, a stanza dwelling on the sorrow of feeling separated from God was followed by a celebration of the glory and happiness of life in Christ. The titles of his most popular songs reflected this emphasis: “Song of the Soul Set Free,” “Glory of His Presence,” “Then Jesus Came.” Jesus had come to sinners, and now it was their turn to “make a decision.” “You must accept Jesus Christ, and accept Him – now,” Smith emphasized. “Will you do it?”43 Those who received the gift of salvation would enter into an intense, personal relationship with God, he promised. Maintaining that relationship would take some effort, however – the new Christian would need to spend time alone with God each day. “You have to live with people in order to know them,” Smith observed. In order to know God, Smith advocated what he called “The Morning Watch,” a time of prayer and bible study at the beginning of each day. Smith observed that he would never “attempt to carry on my church work without first meeting God, morning by morning. Directly after breakfast I retire to my study, close the door and there spend the first hour alone with God.” This was meant to be an intense experience, and he offered some practical suggestions for those who found early morning prayer a challenge. “Have you ever become drowsy when you have been at prayer?” he asked his readers. “I always walk when I pray,” he answered. “I clear the furniture from the centre of the room and then I pace back and forth as I talk to God. I have walked hundreds of miles down through the years as I have prayed.”44 Smith was typical of early twentiethcentury fundamentalists who viewed devotional life as a kind of battery which would recharge them each morning with the Holy Spirit’s power. Freshly infused with divine energy, they could confidently carry out God’s work in a threatening and sinful world.45 Smith’s emphasis on morning devotions was partly the product of Keswick teaching. Followers of the Keswick doctrine believed that if they avoided sin, they would be freshly anointed by God in ways that would empower their Christian service on Earth. This had been the message Reuben Torrey had underscored to Smith and others during the 1906 Toronto campaign. As a result, in the years that followed, the deeply introspective young convert had been obsessed with achieving a state of holiness. After drifting in and out of several Holiness and Pentecostal organizations while a teenager, Smith had discovered and adopted the Keswick model.46 It remained a central component of his theology for the rest of his life. In his books, tracts, songs, and sermons Smith counselled fellow Christians to devote their energies to being “filled by the Holy Spirit.” According to Smith, once this “enduement

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of power” had been given, the Christian would “no longer be vitally interested in politics, current events, modern novels, newspapers, stocks and bonds, etc.”47 The Spirit-filled believer would see himself or herself as set apart and different from those who were not Christians. “Does the world hate you?” Smith asked. “If you are not of it … and if you make it clear that you are a pilgrim and a stranger, then you will very quickly discover that the world hates you. You see it depends on the attitude you take toward it.”48 Smith’s notions of strict separation placed him in contradistinction to liberal Protestant ministers who believed that since God worked in and through His creation, Christians should do the same. They were open to what the world could teach them and enthusiastically applied new business practices to their church work. In 1911 Frederick W. Taylor shared the results of his workplace studies in The Principles of Management, advocating a gospel of efficiency that would eventually be applied to organizations of all kinds. Shailer Mathews, dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School, wasted no time in outfitting the new ethic for church work and the following year published Scientific Management in the Churches. Efficiency was soon the watchword of mainstream denominations, as manifested by the appearance of periodicals such as Church Management, launched in 1923.49 The distinguished Princeton theologian J. Gresham Machen, who became one of the most eloquent exponents of fundamentalism in the United States, was convinced that this push toward scientific management left less room for religious belief and cited it as one of the reasons that he left the church. Smith had studied and worked as a Presbyterian minister in the United States and was sensitive to these developments. He thought he could see the same trends north of the border. Years before Machen’s move, Smith left the Canadian Presbyterian church for similar reasons. As far as Smith was concerned, “the world has become so churchy and the Church so worldly that it is hard to distinguish the one from the other. The line of demarcation has been so completely broken down that churches, where revivals once flourished, where spiritual life was at one time deep and strong, are to-day mere social centres.”50 Since the latter half of the nineteenth century, the mainstream denominations had been giving increased attention to programs and outreach activities in an attempt to make the church the centre of Canadian social life. These “institutional churches” comprised Sunday Schools, girls’ and boys’ clubs, youth groups, benevolent societies, temperance societies, and athletic teams and were the frequent hosts of concerts, socials, and meetings of all kinds.51

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Smith would have none of it. His separation from the institutional church and its “worldly pursuits” was in keeping with the teachings of premillennialism, a position advanced by John Nelson Darby, a teacher with the British Plymouth Brethren sect in the late nineteenth century. During the 1860s and 1870s, Darby had toured Canada, the United States, and Great Britain popularizing the notion of premillennial dispensationalism. Darby had claimed that the Bible was divided into several periods of time or “dispensations.” Careful study had revealed to him that prophecies made to Jews in an Old Testament dispensation were about to be fulfilled for Christians in the present. According to the ancient prophets, the world would become increasingly evil until Christ returned and established the “millennium,” a thousand-year kingdom on earth. The forces of evil would be temporarily defeated but would rise up to challenge Christ and his followers at the end of the millennium. At the final battle, Satan and his minions would be crushed. In the subsequent judgment, God would cast all “unbelievers” into hell and reward His followers with eternal life in heaven.52 Historians Ernest Sandeen and Timothy Weber have argued that premillennialism was the driving force in the lives of early twentiethcentury fundamentalists. On the one hand, premillennialism marginalized fundamentalists by separating them from a world destined for destruction. On the other hand, as Joel Carpenter has pointed out, it energized them to carry out the task of evangelization. Time was short; Christ could return at any moment. Christians needed to act quickly to help “save” as many sinners as possible.53 Smith’s commitment to this doctrine was manifested in the Toronto (Christie Street) Christian and Missionary Alliance Tabernacle, an edifice he designed. Smith announced the building campaign in the autumn of 1921, and the church was erected shortly thereafter. The contrast between this building and the Presbyterian churches that he had left behind was striking. Mainstream church leaders erected massive stone cathedrals, yet Smith built a tabernacle – a reference to Moses’ “tent of meeting,” a temporary, portable structure that the Hebrew leader had created for worship. 54 While mainstream churches were distinguished by towering spires symbolizing Protestantism’s power over society, Smith’s tabernacle was a remarkably plain structure, except for a Star of David in the front exterior brickwork. With this symbol the church’s commitment to premillennialism was made visible to both the congregation and passers-by. Like the Old Testament Israelites, the Alliance adherents were God’s “chosen people,” set apart from the rest of the world.

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Despite their claim to special status, Smith’s followers would enjoy little comfort on earth. Their interior, which seated two thousand, was described by an unimpressed journalist as “barn-like.” In contrast to the dignified comfort of mainstream churches, Smith’s tabernacle suffered from an inadequate heating system and a lack of insulation that left the building unbearably cold in winter and swelteringly hot in summer. Hard pews and plain wooden chairs only added to the misery. It did not matter: any building would do for Smith, because God was everywhere and could not be limited to four walls and a roof. Interviewed by a reporter, Smith noted that “our Lord did not tell us to build beautiful churches, but to evangelize the world. Hence, our tabernacle, while comfortable and adequate for our needs, is a plain and inexpensive structure.”55 Spreading the gospel was Smith’s goal, and he refused to use money targeted to the publication of tracts or the sponsorship of foreign missions for his building. As far as he was concerned, ornamental churches were a waste of time and resources. His energies were required to spread the gospel before the Lord’s imminent return. Smith was convinced that he and his colleagues were at the vanguard of a cosmic battle between good and evil. During an evangelistic campaign at the Toronto Tabernacle in the early 1920s, Smith informed his brothers and sisters in the Alliance that the “Tabernacle has now become the storm centre between the power of darkness and the power of light. Thousands are praying on both sides of the Atlantic.”56 Their prayers were needed because Smith and his fellow Christians were facing more than human enemies. On another occasion Smith warned that “the Atheists … are only checkers on the board. Satan is the master hand.”57 Satan’s favourite weapons, according to Smith, were higher criticism and evolutionary science. In the United States, fundamentalists and liberals fought a pitched battle over evolution which culminated in the Scopes “Monkey Trial” in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. Soon after the state of Tennessee banned the teaching of Darwinism in public school, a young Dayton biology teacher, John Scopes, tested the law. Fundamentalists won this battle – Scopes was initially found guilty of teaching evolution – but they lost the war. The major newspapers which covered the story made fundamentalists look like “bigots and ignoramuses,” an image that persisted in the decades that followed.58 Though the Scopes trial has been viewed as a defining moment in the history of fundamentalism, most fundamentalists were more concerned about biblical criticism than evolution. As fundamentalists saw it, if the Bible was going to be useful it needed to be without

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errors and historically authentic. Either the whole book was true, or it was not the inspired word of God.59 Fundamentalists like Smith firmly believed that they could understand the Bible as well as university trained “experts,” and resisted all claims to the contrary. In this way, fundamentalism represented a rebellion by common people against the scientific and biblical experts of the day and the specialists’ claims to a deeper insight into the scriptures. In an era marked by the rising esteem accorded to “specialists,” Smith discussed the eternal questions of life and death in a manner that people of all ages and socio-economic levels could understand. In the words of his friend Edwin Orr, Smith was “a populariser of common beliefs.”60 Smith vehemently attacked higher criticism because it appeared to take the Bible, which he viewed to be the centrepiece of the Christian faith, out of the hands of ordinary men and women. The inaugural issue of his first church magazine in 1921 served notice that “Mr. Smith stands … against the assaults of destructive criticism.”61 As Smith saw it, higher criticism was responsible for suffocating the faith of formerly vital Christians. His evidence was primarily anecdotal: an article he wrote for the Alliance World in 1923, for instance, described how the faith of a young woman had been nearly destroyed when she worked in the home of a Methodist minister who concurred with the conclusions of the higher critics.62 Transmitted to others by infected ministers, the disease of higher criticism had eventually killed the spirit of Canada’s mainstream Protestant churches in the early twentieth century, said Smith. Supernatural help was required if Christianity was going to be revived, and Smith saw miraculous healing as evidence of God’s intervention. As a young man, Smith had many questions about the filling of the Holy Spirit. In the Christian and Missionary Alliance, he found some answers. Although the Alliance was one of many denominations that grew out of the nineteenth-century holiness movement, it was distinguished from other churches by its doctrine that the “deeper spiritual life” could involve divine healing. The integration of sanctification and healing resonated in the slogans that graced the walls of many Alliance buildings: “Christ for the soul and Christ for the body.”63 The doctrine of divine healing appealed to many Canadians in the post-World War I period. With increasing urbanization, diseases like tuberculosis presented major problems. However, the rise in tb appeared benign beside the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918. Known as the “silent enemy,” the Spanish Flu was brought to Canada by soldiers returning from Europe after World War I. In the past, only

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the very young and very old had died of influenza. But this strain of the virus was different; even healthy men and women in the prime of life were struck down. By the time the epidemic had subsided, fifty thousand Canadians had died, making the number of casualties of the flu almost equal to the casualties of the First World War. Some suffered psychic anxieties as well – the early twentieth century was marked by an apparent rise in mental illness. Many veterans never recovered from the horrors of the trenches and others seemed to find urban life curiously insubstantial.64 An increased concern for well-being was visible on several fronts. Civic elections in Calgary in December 1918 were dominated by issues of health. In the fall of 1919, the federal government established a Department of Health, and in the months that followed, several provincial governments increased funding for hospitals. In the 1920s, mainstream evangelists like Hugh Crossley wrote tracts and delivered lectures on “Vitalizing Exercises,” demonstrating callisthenics which he promised would keep Canadians in shape. And in Quebec, Roman Catholics who had written letters to a priest known as “Brother André” claimed to have been healed after he had prayed on their behalf.65 As the example of Brother André illustrates, at the same time that Canadians were concerned with health, many were fascinated by miracles. The First World War had turned theoretical questions into practical ones. The notion of God intervening in the physical realm had become urgent, for instance, to mothers who had prayed that their sons would survive German mortars at Passchendaele. When, during the early stages of the war, English troops trapped under enemy fire had reported being comforted by angels, the matter had become a source of international discussion.66 Concerns over health and an increasing belief in miracles came together in the form of divine healing. By the early 1920s, reports historian Robert Mullin, “the English-speaking world was abuzz with the question of faith healing.”67 Leading the way was Anglican layman James Moore Hickson, who toured the United States in 1919, prompting the American Episcopal church to study the matter. When the report was published, it became clear that many church leaders did not support miraculous healing. In a verdict representative of the liberal wing of the mainstream church, which rejected the supernatural, the Episcopalians counselled ministers interested in healing to study psychology instead.68 Fundamentalists, in contrast, embraced divine intervention. Speaking for his congregation, Smith declared that “we stand in hearty accord with all evangelical churches, holding to the supernatural as over

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against the natural of modern thought. We dare not limit God.”69 Smith’s first taste of divine healing had come in the Bosworth Brothers Evangelistic Campaign held in Toronto’s Massey Hall in 1921. The Reverend W.A. Roffe, the superintendent for the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada, had arranged the visit of Pentecostal evangelist and faith healer “F.F.” Bosworth and his brother “B.B.,” an accomplished musician and song leader. Smith threw himself into the campaign with characteristic vigour.70 He seized on the miracles of physical healing occurring in Massey Hall as a vindication of fundamentalist beliefs. God’s action on earth was not limited to natural processes, as liberal Protestants argued. The miracles were proof that He intervened directly in the lives of ordinary women and men. “Never again will the higher critics and sceptics be able to plead ignorance in this city,” Smith declared to his newspaper readers. “They may not believe in the miracles of the Bible, but they are now faced with miracles of an unquestionable character right in their midst.”71 Smith’s enthusiastic endorsement of the healing campaign is also understandable given the overwhelming response of the people of Toronto. For the first time in his life, Smith found the work with which he was affiliated being written up in the Toronto press. And with the press came crowds that overflowed into the street outside Massey Hall. When divine healing became a factor in the revivals of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson in the early 1920s, the size of her audiences multiplied.72 It was the same in Toronto. Smith later observed that “miracles of healing have frequently been used of God to gain a hearing for and to secure faith in the Gospel Message … I have noted that even when the subject was Divine Healing during the great campaigns held by the Bosworth Brothers and others, that more sinners accepted Christ than on any other night.”73 The Bosworth Brothers left Toronto, but the emphasis on miracles remained. Claiming to have been healed of what he believed was a problem with his eyes, Smith took up the cause. He wrote a book on divine healing, The Great Physician, which was published in 1927. He brought in other evangelists who specialized in healing. And in his newspaper he told his readers that “thousands now keenly realize that the power God gave to His beloved Son Jesus to heal the sick is not for past dispensations alone, but is perfectly in harmony with God’s will for the present generation.”74 In the years that followed, however, Smith’s fascination with divine healing waned. There were several reasons for this. First, Smith was troubled that, in biblical times, all were healed, but many left the services of the Bosworths and others still afflicted by their

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infirmities. Second, Smith was uncomfortable with the offerings taken during healing services. He preferred smaller meetings, which would “safeguard against a commercialized ministry, the gravest danger that confronts evangelism today.” “The apostles made no money out of their healing ministry. Perhaps God is seeking to find a man even now whom He can trust along this line,” he observed.75 Third, healing services could be a source of division among fundamentalists. Aimee Semple McPherson first experienced opposition to her ministry when converts at her 1921 San Diego revival claimed to have been healed. In response, fundamentalists associated with Moody Bible Institute, Moody Monthly magazine, and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles – influential institutions in the nascent movement – had taken a stand against her. Miraculous cures stemmed from an unbiblical theology, these fundamentalists argued, and led to disillusionment among Christians whose ailments were not relieved. During the Bosworth Brothers campaign in Toronto, for instance, Smith’s friend Roland Bingham spoke out against the meetings.76 Smith was endeavouring to create an interdenominational evangelistic ministry in the city of Toronto, and that required a broad base of support. Smith recognized that healing was a divisive issue that might lead to a decline in the backing needed to realize his vision. Finally, and most importantly, Smith supported healing services, not for the sake of healing alone, but because they drew audiences to messages on conversion. Christians should “keep clearly in view our one great objective,” he told the readers of The Great Physician, “namely, the evangelization of the world, and see to it that everything contributes to that end.”77 In end-times prophecy Smith found a better way to make his message relevant to men and women, thereby drawing them to his conversion appeal. Smith realized that he was on the right track during the 1925 campaign of Welsh evangelists Fred Clarke and George Bell, held in Smith’s Toronto Tabernacle. Their emphasis on Christ’s second coming drew capacity crowds, indicating to Smith that Torontonians were interested in hearing more about the endtimes. In the same way that the Bosworth Brothers’ healing campaign opened Smith’s eyes to the popularity of healing, the Bell campaign convinced him that sermons on prophecy could draw a crowd. Smith had been reading about the end-times for several years. Several months later he published his first book on prophecy.78 Through the late 1920s and early 1930s, the subject dominated his sermons and evangelistic campaigns. For several years he advertised himself primarily as a prophetic teacher, and it was in the spirit of

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prophecy that Smith’s Peoples’ Church had been launched. The advertisement for the opening service of the church announced that “oswald j. smith will deliver one of his soul-stirring addresses on Prophecy closing with a salvation appeal”79 Smith was tapping into a rich vein of religious speculation. As historian Paul Boyer has shown, apocalyptic thought has been central to Western civilization since the advent of Christianity. This latent fascination with the end-times broke into the open during the First World War. The reasons were readily apparent: students of biblical prophecy knew that Christ’s second coming would be preceded by the re-establishment of the Jewish nation in Palestine. Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917, which declared that “His Majesty’s government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” made the formation of a Jewish state an imminent reality. Christian and Missionary Alliance leader A.B. Simpson wept when he read the declaration to his congregation. What he and other conservative evangelicals had longed for – the return of the Messiah – was about to happen.80 For a brief period following the Scopes trial, Christ’s return took second place to the battle over evolution in the minds of many fundamentalists. Events of the next decade, however, brought a renewed interest in the second coming. On 29 October 1929, “Black Tuesday,” stock markets around the world collapsed, signalling the beginning of a decade of misery. Overseas, Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931; Hitler established the Third Reich in 1933; the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in 1935; and General Francisco Franco, with the support of Hitler and Mussolini, launched a coup in Spain in 1936 that toppled the democratically elected Republican government. Confused Canadians wondered what it all meant, and Smith was convinced that he had the answer. His explanation was presented in several prophetic books, including Antichrist and the Future, in which he claimed that it was “Saturday night in the history of the Church.”81 He ventured beyond general predictions of impending doom to provide details of the “last days.” His books included specific expositions of Daniel’s prophecies and the book of Revelation, outlining exactly how the Antichrist would solve the problems of the Depression. The term “Antichrist” is found in only two books of the Bible, 1 John and 2 John, and the meaning there is uncertain. Yet the concept of an Antichrist has captured the imagination of Christians from the beginning of Christianity. To early twentieth-century fundamentalists, the Antichrist represented the ultimate enemy of Jesus who would

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lead Satan’s forces in a final battle against Christ’s forces before the millennium. Though the Antichrist was feared, fundamentalists looked forward to his appearance because it signalled Christ’s imminent return.82 In the early 1930s, many fundamentalists identified Mussolini as the Antichrist. He ruled in Rome and had signed a concordat with the pope, which made him a likely candidate. Mussolini appeared “to have the beast instincts suggested by the 13th Chapter of Revelation,” said Smith.83 His death made it clear that he was not the Antichrist; however, the rise of the communist ussr offered other possibilities. In sermons, tracts, and books, Smith continued to make predictions and continued to get them wrong. Later editions of his prophetic works were edited; old names and dates were excised and new ones were added.84 It did not seem to matter. First, Smith was completely committed to this method of divining the future, even if it meant that sometimes he was proven wrong. Second, Smith’s references to the second coming always drew a crowd which also heard about repentance and conversion. Smith’s colleague, E. Ralph Hooper, noted in his foreword to Smith’s book, Is the Antichrist At Hand?, that “one of the most gratifying results of these addresses has been the spiritual returns that have flowed from their presentation.”85 According to Orr, Smith’s sermons on prophecy were a way of answering the questions posed by many North Americans during the 1930s.86 Third, Smith may have been wrong about the specifics, but he was correct in general: it was the liberals, he pointed out, who had set out to improve society, who had been shown to be mistaken. In the autumn of 1928, Smith launched his Peoples Church in a flurry of pessimistic prophetic predictions. The Great Depression began a year later, and Smith was perfectly positioned to provide answers to bewildered Torontonians. The messages of Smith and other contemporary prophetic teachers made sense to many confused and rootless North Americans. The world was indeed getting worse. Economic security had vanished; perhaps, some thought, religion could provide an answer. Furthermore, many English-speaking Canadians’ attitudes toward communism meshed well with Smith’s later predictions that the Antichrist would emerge from Russia. But they could rest assured; according to Smith, the communists were “doomed to destruction.” Christ would intervene to destroy the communists and begin his millennial reign on Earth.87 This emphasis on the end-times was intertwined with a stress on missions. Recognized in fundamentalist circles as one of the foremost promoters of missions in the twentieth century, Smith devoted the

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latter half of his career to advancing the cause of full-time Christian service in foreign countries. During the 1930s, support for missions increased among fundamentalists. Smith was on the leading edge of a movement that, by the 1940s, was supporting a third of all North American missionaries working overseas. According to Smith, mission work was the logical extension of the Keswick emphasis on “surrendering all” to God. “You must go, or send a substitute,” Smith told his listeners.88 Missions had been a priority for the Peoples Church from the beginning. The motto with which the church had been launched in 1928 included “Foreign Missions” along with “Salvation,” “The Deeper Life,” and “Our Lord’s Return.”89 Smith explicitly acknowledged the connection between the first and last parts of the motto. Speaking about foreign missions, he noted that “the personal, premillennial coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is one of the supreme incentives to the work the Lord has given us.”90 Smith explained by pointing to verses in the New Testament which indicated that “‘The Gospel must First be published among all nations’ … and then the end shall come. Luke 24:14”91 The conviction that the church could pave the way for Christ’s glorious second coming through mission work motivated Smith’s followers in at least two ways. First, it created a sense of urgency and focus. Attempting to stir the enthusiasm of his followers for the evangelization of the world, Smith observed that “we are in the End-Time of the Age, and … what we are going to do we must do quickly.”92 Christians needed to act without delay in order to “save” as many sinners as possible. Second, the foreign mission enterprise gave the men and women in Smith’s congregation a sense of power. Their economic situation, made more uncertain by the Depression, limited their influence in the temporal realm. But their status as followers of Christ gave them a sense of destiny in the heavenly realm. Not everyone could go overseas, but everyone could give, an investment that would help bring about the second coming. Describing a sermon delivered by Paul Rader at Smith’s Peoples Church, a reporter noted: “Gifts of money to the Couriers [his fundamentalist mission organization] he declared to be ‘an investment to bring the Lord back to earth.’”93 By giving money to missionaries, or going overseas to preach the gospel, Smith’s congregants became major players on the world stage – they were helping to bring about the Messiah’s return. In this way the missionary enterprise offered fundamentalists a sense of hope and purpose. Many gave generously, despite their limited means. Citing a report in a Roman Catholic newspaper, Smith boasted that

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the Peoples Church “gives more money to the foreign mission cause than ALL the Catholic churches from Ottawa to Victoria.”94

smith’s methods: “go at it like selling goods” There was no secret to his success; simply put, Smith made missions fun. At the turn of the century, various entrepreneurial mission societies and churches, such as the Christian and Missionary Alliance, had organised extravagant rallies.95 Smith studied the methods of the Alliance and perfected them for use at Peoples Church. His missionary conventions ran for four weeks, with meetings every night of the week and four on Sunday. Banners were hung repeating Smith’s missionary mottoes, such as “You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead,” and his most famous: “Why should anyone hear the Gospel twice before everyone has heard it once?”96 Services frequently featured slide shows and movies. Before and after the meetings, visitors could stroll through the “Exhibit Room,” examine python skins and witch doctors’ masks, chat with missionaries, or listen to musicians from far-off lands. Smith also provided a refreshment booth, prompting a youngster to boast that “at our church we have hot dogs and Indians.”97 Smith recognized his audience’s desire for diversion, so he presented foreign mission work in a way that appealed to the imagination. The exotic handicrafts and music provided his fundamentalist supporters with the opportunity to experience beauty that they might have found at a local museum, but within a context they could understand. Inside the walls of Smith’s church, a revival mission to the city of Toronto, they learned about revival missions to the rest of the world. They also learned why more money was needed to do God’s work. On the closing night of each campaign, Smith stood before the crowd, restated the financial goal for that year, and opened the donation envelopes, building suspense by reading what he called the “main meals,” while putting the large cheques – “the dessert” – to the side. After the last envelope had been read Smith took his place behind the pulpit. As the audience waited with tense expectancy, Smith announced the total, which invariably exceeded the goal. The choir rose in unison and sang the Hallelujah Chorus as a ribbon ran up the donation thermometer towering over the platform. It was show business at its finest, but show business for the cause of Christ. Tallying the total of these donations, Peoples Church minister John Hull claimed in 1996 that between 1928 and 1994, the Peoples Church had given “over $39 million to world missions.”98

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In his missions conferences Smith created a ritual that stood the test of time. The event was a religious pageant that drew the community together by focusing them on a common goal: the evangelization of humanity. The people who strolled through the exhibit rooms or watched the envelopes being opened were not just spectators, they were participants. Their donations determined the rise and fall of the thermometer behind the stage, and, by extension, the eternal welfare of the peoples of the world. As the Missionary Campaign illustrates, Smith was often willing to use worldly means to achieve his heavenly purposes. His environment provided the model. In the 1920s and 1930s, in the bustling city of Toronto, the Peoples Church operated within the context of a variety of goods and services. Leisure activities were available in abundance, and American movies, radio, music, and magazines provided popular forms of cheap entertainment. Auto touring became fashionable, and Canadians, in the words of historian Arthur Lower, began to worship “the great god CAR.”99 The automobile came to symbolize a sense of release and freedom. On sunny Sunday mornings, some were as likely to take a tour of the countryside as go to church. As the leader of a fledgling independent evangelistic work, Smith could not take his authority for granted, so he embarked on a course of remarkable religious inventiveness. Smith rejected any compromise with contemporary thinking and held to a fixed, nineteenthcentury world view. At the same time, he adopted a modern, entrepreneurial approach to marketing his message, drawing on all the resources of his age in order to spread his version of the gospel. Using slide shows, movies, radio programs, and magazines, he succeeded in presenting his fundamentalist message in an entertaining format. Smith’s marketing savvy was also apparent in his advertising. He developed his methods during a period of significant expansion in product promotion. According to one assessment, advertising experienced its most rapid growth in North America between 1900 and 1925. In 1880 advertising revenues made up 44 per cent of newspaper income; by 1920 that figure had increased to two-thirds. As the ratio of editorial content to advertising declined, the primary mandate of newspaper publishers shifted from selling content to readers to selling readers to advertisers.100 The marketing boom was also manifested in the Eaton’s department store catalogue. A simple flyer in 1884, by the 1920s it had become the country’s most distributed publication.101 Advertising agencies were created to aid retailers in their marketing campaigns, and they used a variety of approaches to appeal to consumers. At Chicago’s Lord and Thomas, John E. Kennedy and Albert Lasker refined the “reason why” style of John E. Powers, which

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emphasized the reasons why a consumer might purchase a product and stressed rational “salesmanship in print.” Ernest Elmo Calkins, who published Modern Advertising in 1905, charted a different course. He repackaged the P.T. Barnum style, which appealed to the emotions in an attempt to create an atmosphere connected to a product. A third group sought a middle way. T. Johnson Stewart, who launched Economic Advertising in 1908, used his journal to promote a compromise between Kennedy and Calkins. To Stewart, both emotion and reason were important to advertising. “You never knew a cool, logical preacher to have a crowded church,” Stewart observed. “The popular preacher appeals to the emotions of men and women. Incidentally, he may be logical, but crowds who attend his services are not enticed by his nice reasoning.”102 A preacher who appealed to reason as well as emotion, Smith used both in his advertising. He grabbed readers’ attention with huge advertisements packed with bold titles that promised a spectacle. In the same way that merchandisers personified products – “Aunt Jemima” became synonymous with flour, and the kindly Quaker with rolled oats – Smith associated his evangelism with personalities. Paul Rader’s name and portrait occasionally appeared in services even though Rader was not scheduled to attend. His association with Smith was enough to provide the latter with an important stamp of fundamentalist approval. Evangelism was presented as a performance art, and announcements featured the peculiar characteristics of the guest revivalist. Descriptions of the musical guests were also given priority. Solos by Madame Maria Karinskaya would be accompanied, it was promised, by stories of the “perils and hardships” of her life in the Soviet Union. At the same time, Smith appealed to reason by supplying ample descriptions of the messages that would be presented. He recognized that he needed to do more than just draw attention to his message. The content of his sermon was important in and of itself, and he was convinced that Canadians wanted to hear it. Smith used other strategies to draw audiences. Department stores occasionally offered free products to draw consumers to their stores, and Smith occasionally promised copies of books to those who attended his meetings. He also scheduled special services during other entertainment events, such as the Canadian National Exhibition, in hopes of drawing funseekers to a meeting on salvation. Smith was always on the lookout for ways to improve his evangelistic methods and thus gain a wider audience. He noted that “when I find someone who is making a great success, I always make it my business to go and study his methods and try to discover the secret.”103

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Smith had learned much from J.D. Morrow at Dale Presbyterian in Toronto, Paul Rader at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, and Aimee Semple McPherson at the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles. All of these religious leaders projected a spirit of enthusiasm, and Smith followed suit. In contrast to fundamentalists like fellow Torontonian T.T. Shields, minister at Jarvis Street Baptist Church, Smith was never severe or angry. Evangelism was a serious business, but the evangelist was consistently upbeat. Drawing on his experiences with Morrow and Rader, Smith tried to maintain an air of the unexpected during his services. The variety-show format, mirroring American stage and radio shows, moved quickly from one “act” to the next. Sunday evening services through the winter months were evangelistic, with Smith preaching a sermon that featured conversion as a primary focus, and healing or Christ’s premillennial return as a secondary emphasis. There were several advantages to including these secondary themes. The interest of those in the audience already “born again” was maintained, and they too were offered a reason to respond to the “altar call” at the conclusion of the service. Before the evening was over, Smith had asked virtually everyone to come forward. There were appeals to those who wished to be converted; those who wanted to rededicate their lives to Christ; those who desired healing; those who wanted to dedicate their lives to missions; and those who were interested in making a more generic commitment to “life-long Christian service.” Joel Carpenter has observed that “going forward” was a fundamentalist sacrament; Smith intended to administer it as often as possible.104 “Nothing beats an invitation where someone steps forward,” he noted. “It’s an experience they never forget.”105 The audience members also appreciated the predictability of these religious shows. In contemporary radio serials, the program ended when the detective solved the crime. In the same way, Smith’s services concluded with the evangelist ushering sinners into the Kingdom of Heaven. Smith was an accomplished orator – Baptist minister Leslie Tarr recalled that Smith was “a very colorful speaker. He thought it was a terrible thing to bore people.”106 Smith spoke with a sense of conviction that stirred his listeners to rise from their pews, walk to the front of the church, and profess a conversion to Christ. Despite his own talents as a speaker, Smith specialized in promoting other evangelists. He knew that variety was needed to hold the interest of his audiences and attract the attention of the press.107 Accordingly, from early spring to late fall, Smith’s church became a revolving door for evangelists who led two-week campaigns with services each evening. Like the products on display at the nearby

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Eaton’s department store, novelty was the key to this evangelistic appeal. Smith observed that “the theatres are open. The movingpicture shows are running … Does the devil take holidays? Why then, should the Church ease up on its program during the summer months?”108 The themes and styles of the various evangelists differed, but each met two important criteria: the speakers were confirmed fundamentalists and they could draw a crowd. The latter consideration was more important to Smith. For instance, by 1934, Billy Sunday’s career as an evangelist was all but finished; many fundamentalists considered him an embarrassment. But Smith was not among them – he was convinced that Sunday would draw capacity crowds in Toronto and arranged a date for a Billy Sunday revival at the Peoples Church.109 To ensure crowds at his services, Smith developed his own innovations in marketing. His friend Edwin Orr, a historian and evangelist, described Smith as “a born publicist. He has a positive genius for attracting the eye and ear.”110 During the 1925 Clarke and Bell evangelistic campaign held at the Toronto Tabernacle, Smith organized a parade through the streets of Toronto to draw attention to the services. With cars draped in banners and marchers carrying placards with slogans like “Christ is Coming! Are You Ready?” Smith attempted, in his own words, to reach “the Christless masses of the city.” A mystified reporter called it “one of the strangest processions ever seen on Toronto streets.”111 While parades celebrating consumer culture were commonplace, journalists were not used to covering one that aggressively showcased religion. But the reporter’s tone did not bother Smith. By creating a spectacle, he had succeeded in drawing attention to his meetings. Music was a central attraction. Smith took pains to appeal to those who might balk at the prospect of attending a church service but who could be lured to a free concert. Homer Rodeheaver, Billy Sunday’s music director, counselled his choirs of 2000 to “go at it like selling goods”112 and turned his evangelistic meetings into musical galas. Smith followed suit, adjusted his music so that it reflected the prevailing style of the “big band era,” and watched the number of men and women at his services increase. During the 1930s, when attendance at the People’s Church reached its peak, the choir numbered one hundred voices, backed by a forty-piece orchestra. Sunday evenings featured a “free” one-hour pre-service concert.113 Soloists were a central attraction at Smith’s evangelistic services. During Smith’s tenure with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the largest crowds had been drawn by Madame Maria Karinskaya. Before her conversion, the Russian “Prima Dona” had apparently “had it all.” Advertisements recounted that “eleven times she sang

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before the late Czar as well as before the royal families of Persia, China and Japan. In her own country she was known as the ‘Siberian Nightingale’ and was twice crowned ‘Queen of Song.’” Madame Karinskaya recalled that she “had every material thing the world could offer me.” Despite this, she “was dissatisfied with life. I was empty, my heart cold.” All of this changed, she observed, when “I gave myself up to the Savior. And now I am absolutely happy.” In a manner reminiscent of the musical melodrama of Crossley and Hunter, Madame Karinskaya demonstrated her decision to live for Christ before Smith’s audience. Removing a jeweled headdress that had been a gift from the Czar, she presented it to Smith with the words, “Now I can go into the service of the true King.” The presentation ended as she sang a lament for her homeland, “Russia, Dark Russia” to the tune of “Juanita.”114 African-American vocal groups such as the Cleveland Colored Quartet were crowd-pleasers as well. Black music had been popular within Protestant circles for some time – Crossley’s renditions of “Negro spirituals” had been consistent crowd favourites in the late nineteenth century. Smith went a step further and hosted AfricanAmerican singers. Southern blacks held an exotic appeal for Torontonians, who were drawn to what Smith advertised as the “muchheard-of Negro emotion.”115 Evangelist Charles Templeton recalled that the Cleveland Colored Quartet was frequently “the reason people went to meetings … They were just wonderful … laughing a great deal … wanting to reach out and be accepted … You went to where they were and you were guaranteed a crowd.”116 Slide shows and movies were another staple of Smith’s evangelistic campaigns. Moving pictures were, without doubt, the most important entertainment invention of the early twentieth century. The first Canadian movie house had opened in Vancouver in 1902 and had proved to be an instant hit. In the years following World War I the theatres were booming, and by 1934 urban Canadians were watching an average of twenty to thirty films a year.117 Part of the appeal lay in the price – movies offered the best entertainment bang for the buck. Many were also drawn to films featuring prostitution and other topics not discussed by polite Victorians. The absence of social control was another bonus. Entertainment had previously been confined to homes and churches where parents and community leaders could exercise a measure of supervision. But the theatres were dark rooms filled with strangers, and they were open to anyone who was willing to pay the entrance fee. Fundamentalists were not content to condemn these iniquitous movie houses: as far as they were concerned the medium of film was irredeemable. R.A. Torrey, for instance, refused to use movies for his

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Los Angeles church, and the influential fundamentalist magazine, the King’s Business, declared in 1924 that “when the church resorts to them as a means of aiding the work of our Lord we can only bow our heads in shame.”118 Oswald J. Smith adopted the latest entertainment innovation with his head held high. In typical fashion, he responded to the popularity of the cinema by organizing shows of his own, using photographic slides and later films to launch his discussions on subjects like “Russia and the Russian Revolt Against God.” Depending on the subject, the slides and stories featured cannibals, bandits, or, in the case of Smith’s reflections on Fiji, the backs of the island’s bare-chested women. Travel to these exotic locales was but a dream for the primarily lower- and middle-class audiences. Smith enabled them to catch a glimpse of places like Fiji and ensured that they were evangelized in the process.119 The invention of radio provided Smith with another means of “spreading the gospel.” Radio was initially the purview of amateurs who built their own sets, then spent hours fiddling with the knobs to get the best reception. Gradually, however, the home-built kits were replaced with attractive, mass-produced sets, and the boys and young men were joined by the rest of the family. As radio became increasingly popular, the Canadian government intervened in the medium, creating the Canadian Radio and Broadcasting Corporation (crbc) in 1932, and its replacement, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (cbc), in 1936. The cbc operated a single network of public stations and private affiliates and regulated Canadian commercial radio stations. Through the crbc and cbc the Canadian government maintained a significant presence on the airwaves. In the United States, by contrast, the government encouraged the formation of private stations. American radio stations proliferated, and Canadians tuned in. While only 60 per cent of Canadian radios could pick up a station based in their own country, every radio could listen in to an American station. By the late 1920s, it is estimated that 80 per cent of programs listened to by English-speaking Canadians were from the United States. Most featured entertainment first, enlightenment a distant second.120 Radio programming borrowed from vaudeville and the theatre in the 1920s and 1930s. The drama, comedy, live music, and variety programs were highly popular: informal polls indicated that Canadians wanted more music and less talk from their radio stations.121 Entrepreneurs in religion like Smith responded accordingly – the evangelist and the medium were a perfect fit. In contrast to film, which displayed occasionally immoral images in dark and anonymous movie houses, radio reached into Canadians’ parlours, where

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parents could supervise. In contrast to newspapers, controlled by businessmen, editors, and journalists with their own point of view, radio offered evangelists such as Smith a direct line to listeners. Where magazines told stories about events in the past, radio broadcasts of religious services made listeners feel like “they were there,” and underscored that they were part of a religious community. The possibilities of the new medium were so exciting that one American fundamentalist described radio as a “modern altar” through which sinners could be brought into God’s kingdom.122 While most mainstream church leaders remained aloof from the new medium, fundamentalists seized on radio as a way of disseminating their message directly to men and women. Not all were successful, however. T.T. Shields, for instance, struggled mightily between 1925 and 1932 to set up his own station, only to have it fail after a few months. A renowned preacher, Shields did little to alter his style for radio.123 Smith, in contrast, created an American-style program suited to the new medium. Adept at borrowing from commercial culture to further his religious message, Smith gave listeners what they wanted: entertaining religious radio.124 Paul Rader’s Chicago radio program served as a model for Smith’s “Back Home Hour.” Broadcast from Peoples Church after the regular Sunday evening service, the program was primarily a religious variety show heavy on music; only fifteen minutes was given to preaching. Eldon Lehman, who organized the program, reminisced that “for six years we had what the manager of radio station cknc called ‘the finest variety hour on Canadian radio.’” At the height of the show’s popularity in the 1930s it was broadcast on forty-six stations across Canada.125 Smith also attempted to speak to Torontonians directly through his many publications. Feeling ignored by the mainstream press, he published his own newspapers, supplying stirring accounts of the exciting work going on at the church and offering his own views of major news events. Listed on the back pages of Smith’s newspapers were novels that bore a decidedly fundamentalist stamp. Substitutes for “worldly” books and short stories, these were advertised as tales of “missionary romance and daring” and “terrible experiences in the wilds of mountain, forest and plain.” One of the chapters of Oswald Smith’s Short Stories related the sorry life of a “backslider” who eventually rededicated himself to Christ and went on to glory on the mission field.126 Smith also marketed a “Scripture Text Calendar” that supplied fundamentalists with prescribed Bible readings for each day of the year. And to fill the empty space on the wall beside the calendar, Smith, like Crossley and Hunter before him, sold his portrait. At the

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back of the Peoples Church, visitors could find autographed books and photos of the evangelist-pastor. Having sold virtually everything he could, it only made sense that Smith would package himself. Some critics derided Smith’s religious salesmanship. While T.T. Shields deemed Smith “sound enough on the essentials of evangelical faith,” he considered him to be “a religious show man” who would “do anything at all to get a crowd.”127 Smith was not distracted by his critics. He understood that those who attended his meetings experienced their faith within the world; that their beliefs were formed, and continued to function, within the context of twentieth-century commercial culture. As a result of Smith’s attempts to borrow from and infiltrate commercial culture, the fundamentalist Christians in his congregation were able to enjoy everything that non-believers enjoyed and thereby gain a feeling of control over modern technology. Those who tuned in to Oswald Smith’s radio program knew that, regardless of what the critics said, they were on the cutting edge. Their God, after all, could be preached through the newest of inventions. At the same time, these objects and media carried a message: the essential truths of Christianity, as fundamentalists understood them, remained constant in a world of change.128 Historian Robert Bruce Mullin has described churches as “communities of discourse” which talk about the divine with specific words and symbols that constitute a separate language from the outside world.129 Smith had established Peoples Church in an attempt to “reach the unsaved for Christ,” for “why should anyone hear the Gospel twice before everyone has heard it once?” Its vision was international, not local, and with this mandate Smith’s followers defined themselves and their religious community as distinct from Toronto’s other Protestant churches. The media by which this missionary message was spread also distinguished Smith’s church. Smith’s use of calendars, magazines, and especially radio created for early twentieth-century Toronto fundamentalists a separate culture and identity that could sustain them in what they considered to be a hostile world. Furthermore, they allowed Smith’s followers to think in different ways about what it meant to “go to church.” Their attendance at Smith’s meetings was not necessarily important; in fact, during those times when the crowds were too large, it had been discouraged by the evangelist himself. Smith’s followers could be “true Christians” by giving up their seats to sinners and instead tuning in to the service via radio from the comfort of their living rooms. But there was more to this than the establishment of a distinct subculture. These forms of communication and objects helped create what historian Joel Carpenter has called a “halfway house” where

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fundamentalists could enjoy a sense of community and support among their peers. Smith’s churches comprised missions, colleges, publishing houses, and a material culture by which his followers could define themselves. Surrounded by religious books, portraits, and calendars, these Toronto fundamentalists created a distinct identity that set them apart from the rest of the world. Nurtured within this protected space, they could then emerge rejuvenated, ready to pursue their mission of spreading the gospel.130 Mainstream Protestant “institutional churches” had created clubs and outreach organizations in a similar attempt to nurture their members. In this way the churches had legitimized leisure to Canadians. Smith brought religion and recreation together, but the latter was never an end in itself. The evangelist borrowed the secular strategies of the marketplace to further his sacred goal of world-wide evangelization. Critics might have pointed out that Smith had commodified religion in another, more sinister way. In describing a donation as an “investment to bring the Lord back to Earth,” he made gift-giving a kind of commerce between Christians and God. In the same way that their money could be traded for consumer goods such as clothing, it could be given to God in exchange for his future return to Earth. They could prepare the highway for Christ’s second coming: if they built it, He would come. Smith saw nothing wrong with this because, while his methods mirrored commercial offerings of the 1920s and 1930s, his items and media of communication were set apart from “secular” culture by their religious message and function. His product would do more than make buyers temporarily happier with their lives – this purchase had an eternal guarantee. Smith did not worry about reducing religion to just another commodity because his message undercut the importance of everything related to the world. Commercial culture and its plethora of goods would pass; their sole use was to point people to religion. Thus Smith’s adoption of popular cultural forms strengthened his mission. His ultimate goal was the evangelization of the “Christless masses.” By using the techniques of modern merchandising, he drew potential converts to his services. Within his church, he used religious imitations of secular products to foster a sense of community and to revitalize Christians for the task at hand. In the end, these modern, entrepreneurial efforts aided Smith and his followers as they attempted to spread the “old-fashioned gospel.” Of course, Smith could not accomplish this alone. And as much as he saw himself as a man especially called by God to meet the needs

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of the day, he also acknowledged his place as the latest in a long line of urban evangelists. He explained the establishment of his centrally located evangelistic institution in Toronto as consistent with the work of American evangelist D.L. Moody, and Smith’s contemporary and friend, Paul Rader. The majority of his heroes were American, with one significant exception. Of all the evangelists Smith looked to for inspiration, none surpassed Crossley and Hunter. Smith thought it symbolic that Sir John A. Macdonald had professed conversion during a CrossleyHunter revival in 1889, the year of Smith’s birth. (Smith refused to let the facts get in the way of a good story – Macdonald had testified to his change of heart in 1888.) Two years after his own conversion, Smith had attended a Crossley-Hunter campaign in Huntsville. Two decades later Crossley attended Smith’s church. Smith observed in 1932 that “Dr. Crossley comes and sits in my services, an old whitehaired man with the face of an angel … as I look at Dr. Crossley … I think of the great scenes that were enacted more than a generation ago, when evangelism was at its height.” Mass evangelism had declined since then, Smith observed, but a new day was dawning. “God is raising up a great nation-wide Tabernacle work, specifically for Evangelism,” Smith declared. “And in these Tabernacles the fires of Evangelism are kept burning.”131 Stoking the flames were charismatic leaders like Smith. He was an organizational dynamo who embodied the action-oriented leadership style trumpeted by Progressive Age management gurus. His approach to his pastorate at the Los Angeles Gospel Tabernacle in 1927 offers one example: at the opening service he announced plans to organize a band of “Prayer Warriors” to pray before each service, “Personal Workers” to lead others to conversion, and “King’s Messengers” to distribute evangelistic tracts to passersby.132 Smith’s success in Los Angeles and elsewhere during the 1920s owed much to his affiliation with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He had learned many lessons from the Alliance leadership and his later missionary campaigns copied Alliance practices. Despite this, Smith viewed himself as a solitary figure, a prophet in the religious wilderness. This sense of isolation was partly self-imposed: Smith was a charismatic but autocratic leader. He was impatient with the slow pace of bureaucratic planning, had no time for committees or democratic procedures, and preferred to make decisions on his own. As a result, his ministries at Dale Presbyterian and the Christian and Missionary Alliance Toronto Tabernacle had ended bitterly. In 1928 he had considered returning to the Toronto Tabernacle, on the condition that he would be free of its democratic organization. The assembly demurred, and Smith was forced to start his own church.

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With the lessons of the past in mind, Smith organized the polity of Peoples Church so that there was no membership and thus no democracy. He was free to act as he wished and to adjust his methods and message quickly to his surroundings. The church polity was well suited to the lives of mobile urbanites: like the residents of the city of Toronto, the men and women of Peoples Church could come and go as they pleased. During the age of the corporation, he built a substantial religious organization. His enthusiastic adoption of the values of the era stands in marked contrast to his self-appointed “outsider status.” Smith was a typical religious reformer, who distrusted the “religious establishment” and instead found meaning in a personal encounter with the divine. The mainstream denominations defined themselves according their history and traditions. But Smith had no historical consciousness because his religious work was the result, not of human agency, but of God. Like other restorationist religious leaders, he looked back to early Christianity. Just as God had used a pillar of fire to lead his people out of Egypt, so He was “raising up” a Tabernacle movement to keep the “fires of Evangelism … burning” in the present. History was of little use for another reason: at any moment it would come to an end. Instead of dwelling on the past, Christians should prepare for Christ’s imminent return.133 Smith’s rejection of the established church was not just theological; it was also personal. The mainstream Protestant denominations were led by university-trained specialists who had dismissed Smith, an academic failure, on several occasions. Rejected by men, Smith considered himself chosen by God. With the counsel of the divine, he was more than fit to be an expert on everything having to do with his church. In this way the Peoples Church was a popular religious uprising, attended by those who, like Smith, felt out of place in mainstream Protestantism. Smith’s bitterness was manifested in a judgmental attitude to the major churches. In the early years of his ministry, few could meet his standards of righteousness. Like many of his fundamentalist colleagues, Smith frequently chastised churches which championed a theology different from his own. The Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Protestant mainstream churches were identified by Smith as the “whores” referred to in the book of Revelation. His fellow believers fared no better. While ministering at Chicago’s First Presbyterian Church in 1913, Smith had read from the pulpit the names of elders who had not attended prayer meetings.134 Smith played for keeps because the game in question was of eternal consequence. Women and men were going to spend eternity in hell if the churches did not increase their commitment to evangelism, he

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argued. As he grew older, Smith’s extreme judgmentalism abated somewhat and he adopted a more irenic approach. Compared to fellow Torontonian T.T. Shields, who rarely met a person he could not disagree with, Smith was positively congenial. By 1932 he was begging fundamentalists to “bury the hatchet. There has been enough religious strife.”135 While some of his fundamentalist colleagues assailed one another, Smith adopted the motto “No attack, no defense.” In this regard he was typical of English-speaking Canadian fundamentalists. According to George Marsden, an expert on early twentiethcentury fundamentalism, the American movement represented “a loose, diverse, and changing federation of co-belligerents united by their fierce opposition to modernist thought.”136 In contrast, historians of fundamentalism in English Canada, while noting commonalities between Canadian and American fundamentalism, have consistently argued that Canadians were more conciliatory than their American counterparts.137 Smith never distinguished himself from fundamentalists in the United States – his closest colleagues were American. He was part of a continental movement, a network of institutions, pastors, evangelists, mission leaders, and bible teachers for whom national borders were of little importance. There were few institutions to belong to, but a plethora of connections to be made. Where the mainstream churches adopted a rigid, bureaucratic organizational structure, fundamentalists went with a flexible, open approach that emphasized practices, not institutions. As a result, fundamentalist leaders could adjust quickly according to the needs of the moment and share their strategies with their peers.138 Smith corresponded and traded pulpits with the premier American fundamentalists of the day. His closest friends were members of the irenic branch of American fundamentalism and included George Trumbull, the editor of the influential Sunday School Times; Charles Fuller, host of America’s most popular radio program during the 1930s, the “Back Home Revival Hour”; and Harold J. Ockenga, the driving force behind the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals and Fuller Theological Seminary. Evangelist Billy Graham preached at the service celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Smith’s ministry and presided at his funeral.139

the response: a congregation “poorer than most” Graham’s attendance on this sombre occasion in 1986 resulted in significant press attention. Smith would have been pleased. He knew

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that the press played an important role in the spreading of the gospel and coveted the attention of newspaper reporters. He had basked in excellent coverage during his year-long ministry at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Tabernacle in Los Angeles in 1927–28. During the closing service Smith thanked the newspapers for their “wonderful publicity” and had noted that “nowhere have we had greater cooperation from the papers.”140 Religion was a growth industry in Los Angeles in the 1920s, and the newspapers had been happy to grow their circulation with it. Furthermore, in a city dominated by the entertainment industry, Smith’s combination of stage show and church service was worthy of comment. In Los Angeles, exciting evangelistic services were encouraged. This was not the case, however, in Toronto. Among the city’s newspapers, only the Globe provided sympathetic coverage of Smith’s services in the 1920s and 1930s. This was partly the result of Smith’s friendship with Globe publisher W.G. Jaffray. Of all the Toronto dailies, the Globe was most supportive of Protestant Christianity in general, and included Sunday School lessons, frequent editorials sympathetic to the church, and articles describing religious events in the city. Reports of evangelistic campaigns and missions conferences at Peoples Church occasionally landed on the front page.141 But the Globe was an exception; coverage of Smith’s services by the other Toronto newspapers was perfunctory or non-existent, a fact the evangelist frequently lamented. The consistent coverage enjoyed by Crossley and Hunter was a thing of the past, he complained: “There has come over the newspapers of our day a stupendous change … Religious news is no longer news to the daily press.”142 His assessment was correct: the general attitude of the English-speaking Canadian press to evangelistic campaigns, at least the sort that Smith organized, had changed significantly since the late 1800s, due in part to the restructuring of the newspaper business. The early twentieth century had witnessed an explosive growth in numbers of newspapers and periodicals, as business-minded publishers catered to the various interests of the reading public. By the 1920s, publishing ranked among the top revenue-generating businesses in Canada. In the pursuit of profits, newspapers adopted a breezy style of writing and emphasized entertainment to the detriment of edification. Historian Paul Rutherford points out that in the 1920s, newspapers like the Toronto Star, “though never antireligious, specialized in the coverage of secular life, often the seamy side of life.”143 As a result, only sensational events at Smith’s church were reported by most Toronto newspapers. During the Bosworth Brothers’ healing campaign in 1921, for instance, the Toronto Star published daily reports

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of the services and tallied the number of healings and conversions. The Star’s support for the services was ambivalent, however. One reporter, for instance, took on the assignment of finding converts who had been “cured,” but whose illnesses had returned.144 The Toronto Telegram, for its part, limited coverage to religious controversies. In 1930, for example, a row between Smith and his disputatious colleague T.T. Shields generated columns of ink and put Smith in the media spotlight. Without mentioning names, the minister of Jarvis Street Baptist Church had made public his contempt for Smith’s entertaining evangelism in an article titled “Religious Sprees” in the June 1930 edition of his newspaper, the Gospel Witness. The article touched off a nasty exchange that drew the attention of both Toronto’s police and its newspapers. Three months after the publication of “Religious Sprees,” J.C. Kellogg, who hailed himself as the “Cowboy Evangelist,” led a campaign in the Peoples Church. At one point in a sermon, he dismissed Shields’s criticism as “Jarvis Street Sewer Gas.” Shields responded by checking Kellogg’s credentials as an evangelist, prophetic teacher, and faith healer. When he discovered apparent irregularities, Shields sent an envoy, the Reverend William Fraser, to Kellogg’s service. Front-page articles in Toronto’s major newspapers reported the scuffle that ensued. Soon after the meeting began, Fraser stood up and began reading telegrams challenging Kellogg’s integrity. Cries of “throw him out,” “shut up,” and “call the police” echoed through the sanctuary. The police were indeed called in, though several ushers handled the matter themselves by attempting to remove Fraser forcibly. The choir immediately launched into a vigorous gospel song, though it is doubtful that many in the audience were distracted. Eventually Fraser surrendered his telegrams and the meeting continued. After the service, Smith promised that Kellogg would respond. Shields answered by calling a meeting of his own where he denounced Kellogg as a “religious quack” (he would continue his attacks in interviews with reporters and in later issues of his Gospel Witness). For his part, Smith attempted to end the controversy. He and Kellogg, Smith reported, “were too busy soul-winning to fight.” With these words the newspapers ended their coverage.145 Some Toronto churchgoers may have been embarrassed by the spectacle, but Smith was not among them. He recognized that the only way that he could interest the Toronto press in his evangelistic meetings was by generating a controversy. Soon after organizing his fledgling church, which had needed publicity to increase the number of Torontonians in its congregation, he had provided the newspapers

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with a spectacle they could not resist. Looking back on the controversy, he recalled that “we got thousands of dollars’ worth of free advertising out of it … From then on, there were hundreds of new faces in our congregation.”146 It is difficult to determine the nature of Smith’s audiences – Peoples Church, like other gospel Tabernacles, did not have membership lists.147 Smith did not believe in church membership for several reasons. First, he pointed out, there was no biblical precedent for it. Second, as noted above, voting members might hinder his leadership. Third, it was not evangelistic practice. “Evangelists do not take in members during their campaign of a month or so,” observed Smith, “and in as much as Tabernacle work is nothing more nor less than prolonged evangelistic campaigns, we cannot either.”148 The men and women in his congregation who had been converted were members in the universal body of Christ, and that was all that counted. This highly informal approach made few demands of congregants, a strategy that helped to grow Smith’s fledgling church – people could show up without feeling pressured to make a commitment. Sooner or later, however, the evangelist would convince them that their help was needed to spread the gospel, and they would find themselves taking an active role in the life of the Tabernacle. Smith’s envisioned an evangelistic work that would attract the unconverted of Toronto. Some of those who attended, however, were converted Christians who had been members of other churches. The evangelist-pastor was frequently accused of sheep-stealing by colleagues such as Shields,149 and the Jarvis Street divine was correct. The opening of Smith’s Peoples Church in 1928, for instance, seriously hurt the nearby Christian and Missionary Alliance Tabernacle, where membership dropped by one-third. The church had struggled since Smith’s departure for Los Angeles in 1926, and his return was a temptation many Tabernacle adherents could not resist.150 Reflecting the Anglo-Saxon makeup of Toronto, sometimes referred to in this era as “the Belfast of Canada,” those who attended Smith’s churches were, with few exceptions, of British extraction.151 Some were professionals, and at least a few were members of the “business class.” By 1921 he was drawing on the connections he had made a decade earlier at tbts. According to one report, Smith had formed “a committee of capable business men”152 to help run the affairs of the Toronto Tabernacle. Another prominent associate at the Tabernacle was “Dr. Ralph E. Hooper, B.A.,” who had been appointed head of the thirty-five-student Canadian Bible Institute. A medical graduate

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from the University of Toronto, Hooper had been an instructor in anatomy at the university, had practised medicine in Toronto, and had served as a missionary before joining Smith at the Tabernacle.153 Some of Smith’s wealthier friends contributed their money as well as their time, especially to building campaigns. In 1922, Smith’s vision for the new Toronto Tabernacle became more of a reality thanks to two donors, one of whom contributed $5,000 and the other $15,000.154 Another donated a sign that could be used to advertise evangelistic messages outside the building. The most substantial contribution to a Smith building campaign came from prominent Toronto businessman W.G. Jaffray, the publisher of the Toronto Globe. Jaffray and Smith were friends (Smith was an enthusiastic supporter of Jaffray’s brother, Robert, a missionary to Indonesia) though Jaffray did not attend the Peoples Church. Smith prayed with the publisher regarding the sale of his newspaper, and Jaffray contributed $20,000 toward the 1934 purchase of the former Central Methodist Church building on Bloor Street.155 Smith and these businessmen undoubtedly shared religious faith. They may also have shared political beliefs. Smith took a conservative approach to political questions through both the Roaring ’20s and the Great Depression. The Depression, in Smith’s opinion, was a result of people forgetting how to save, and at least one of his sermons bemoaned the high rates of income tax.156 Smith was not pandering to a wealthy congregation – few attendees aspired to upper-class status. As noted above, research on several Ontario Baptist congregations indicates that urban fundamentalists tended to be of the lower middle class.157 The situation at Smith’s churches appears to have been similar, according to Smith’s fundraising reports. During a fundraising campaign in 1921, the evangelist noted that most of the money had been given “in small gifts, the largest being $100.”158 Later that year Smith remarked that he had “never seen such liberality and sacrifice on the part of the people, most of them not having much of this world’s goods.”159 Little had changed three decades later. In an admiring article, the Toronto Star’s Ted Honderich noted in 1955 that “the Peoples congregation … is poorer than most.”160 Evidence is similarly limited concerning the ratio of men to women in Smith’s churches. Smith does not appear to have been overly concerned with gender roles. He did not dwell excessively on men’s leadership in the church and did not, in contrast to evangelists before him, and those after, attempt to link Christianity and masculinity. While Smith patterned much of his ministry after his friend and colleague Paul Rader, this was an exception. A former professional boxer, Rader

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radiated masculinity. In his book Modern Salesmanship, he portrayed Jesus as a big, strong man, a loner who cared little for the approval of others. Popular fundamentalist evangelist Billy Sunday shadowboxed with the devil and warned his listeners: “I’d like to put my fist on the nose of the man who hasn’t got grit enough to be a Christian.”161 A professional baseball player who had held the major league record for stolen bases in a season, Sunday frequently summed up his message by sliding into the “home plate of heaven.” Closer to home, John Hunter had frequently argued that to be a Christian was to be a real man. Frank Buchman in the early 1930s and Charles Templeton in the 1940s and 1950s would preach a similar message. But Smith was not at all concerned with making that connection. Since he was a slight and gangly man, any attempt by Smith to embody “muscular Christianity” would have looked ridiculous. Furthermore, an emphasis on manhood might have backfired during the Great Depression. Early twentieth-century definitions of masculinity were closely tied to work, and the self-image of many men suffered with unemployment. After all, what kind of men were they if they could not feed their families? By avoiding the subject, Smith offered men respite from a world that questioned their worth. Nor was the role of women a primary concern for Smith. Women had played a considerable part in church life in general, and evangelistic campaigns in particular, in the late nineteenth century. But their contribution to early twentieth-century fundamentalism, according to some historians, was less significant.162 This was despite the fact that women had made substantial political and economic gains in this period outside the churches. Beginning in 1916 and ending in 1922, women in all Canadian provinces (except Quebec) were granted the right to vote. At the same time, however, opportunities for women who worked for wages continued to be limited, and they still expected to leave the labour market when they married. Smith agreed with the notion that women’s place was in the home, raising a family. His attitude was influenced in part by his literal interpretation of the Bible. In an article written for the Alliance’s national newspaper in 1923 he argued that, according to the Bible, “one thing is clear and that is that women are forbidden to usurp authority over men.”163 Yet the issue of women’s leadership over men was of little importance to Smith. He did not share the militant opposition to female leadership manifested by some of his American colleagues. The influence of his wife, a strong and capable woman, may have had an impact on his attitudes. Before they were married, Daisy Billings had served in a prominent role at their church. After marriage, Mrs. Daisy Smith found her opportunities for service drastically

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curtailed. She responded with disappointment and, often, anger. On several occasions she left her husband and moved to her parents’ home; on another, she purchased a house for the family without consulting her husband. The two eventually worked out an understanding, and later in life, Smith regretted his initial disregard for Daisy.164 The example of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson also may have influenced Smith’s attitudes to women. While in Los Angeles, Smith had closely studied her leadership of the Angelus Temple. Perhaps her success helped convince him to open his pulpit several years later to Mary Agnes Vitchestain Wagner, the “College Girl Evangelist.” Her evangelical campaign seems to have been well received; however, she appears to have been the only “lady evangelist” to have led a campaign in Smith’s church.165 Smith’s ambivalence concerning female evangelists carried over to female missionaries. Yet he recognized that adjustments to apparently God-ordained gender roles were required when men were unavailable. In these cases practical experience had shown that women were effective and, thus, (according to Smith’s pragmatic theology) blessed of God. “We must admit,” observed Smith, “that in many places on the foreign field where men are not available, women are forced to take men’s positions, and God honours their courage.”166 In the grand scheme of things, the roles of men and women were relatively unimportant. An independent entrepreneur in religion, Smith could not rely on the support of a large denomination to extend his own work. If Peoples Church was to succeed, if the message of conversion was to be preached in Toronto and around the world, it required the contribution of both men and women. Time was too short to worry about details.

conclusion Pragmatism typified Smith’s evangelistic career. He would not allow the gender of a missionary to get in the way of his primary goal: the spread of the gospel. What was most important was that the message of conversion was preached and that men and women were converted. In this way, Smith followed in the footsteps of the evangelists he so admired – Crossley and Hunter. Crossley must have disagreed with key elements of Smith’s fundamentalist theology, including his pessimistic premillennialism. But, for a retired revivalist with limited opportunities to hear a traditional evangelistic appeal in the 1930s, this was a minor quibble. Crossley was happy to sit in on meetings where conversion was the central focus.

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Unlike Smith, Crossley and Hunter had preached conversion at a time when evangelical Protestantism held a central place in EnglishCanadian society. They had attempted to ban forms of entertainment, while at the same time drawing on the techniques of the theatre in an effort to draw audiences to their services on sin and salvation. By the third decade of the twentieth century, commercial entertainments had become an entrenched part of urban life. Opportunities for diversion abounded. Smith recognized that he had no chance of closing these down. Instead, he boldly drew on commercial culture and entered his own contributions into the marketplace. The leader of a fledgling church, and thus without stable institutional support, he had to compete in order to succeed. Slide shows, movies, and “free concerts” were promoted shamelessly in order to attract the curious to his conversion message. And advertisements trumpeted the spectacles in the daily press. It was a winning formula, but Smith’s success was limited. No prime minister ever graced his service, and he did not bring about a nation-wide revival. Perhaps that was a good thing – that kind of accomplishment would have forced Smith to revise his entire way of thinking. A nation-wide campaign was perfectly in keeping, however, with the world view of Frank Buchman. In the same way that Smith provided fundamentalists with a sense of purpose, evangelist Buchman provided liberal Protestants with a worldwide mission. During his Oxford Group’s tours through Canada in 1932–33 and 1934, Buchman would tie a traditional evangelical emphasis on conversion to an internationalist agenda, based on “individual life change.” And like Smith, Buchman selectively drew on the strategies of the marketplace to reach a specific target-market.

3 Reflecting “the distinctive character of the age” Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group in Canada, 1932–1934

In November of 1932 the Oxford Group arrived in Canada’s capital city. Clad in evening dress, ten Group members sat before an expectant audience assembled in the elegant banquet hall of Ottawa’s finest hotel, the Chateau Laurier. One by one they rose, stepped forward, and told of how they had been “changed” as a result of their contact with the Group. They had been transformed after confessing their sins and surrendering their lives to God, and now they wished to see others changed. The movement’s primary purpose and “paramount thought,” a speaker observed, was “complete surrender to the will of God and the invocation of His assistance at all times.”1 The goal of the Oxford Group, and its leader, Frank Buchman, was to bring about individual “life changes.” The result of these personal changes, the Group believed, would be a revitalized Christianity and a worldwide revival. The Group’s message combined modern terminology with the basic evangelical message of repentance for sin, regeneration through Christ, and reformation through the work of the Holy Spirit. In order to reach middle- and upper-class men and women with a message of personal change and societal reformation, Buchman adapted both his message and methods to elite commercial culture. Traditional revival services were viewed with disdain by those whom the Oxford Group hoped to change. With this in mind, the Group removed typically religious elements from their services. No hymns or prayers were offered. The meetings were held not in churches but in hotel ballrooms, an environment that made the well-to-do members

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of the audience feel at ease. The “Dinner Jacket Evangelists,” as they were sometimes called, wore formal attire. Their speeches were sprinkled liberally with modern scientific terms and their points were summed up in pithy slogans popular in this age of advertising. Reports in newspapers indicate that English-speaking Protestant Canadians responded positively to this expression of popular religion; audiences of two thousand or more were typical during the Group’s tours through Canada in 1932–33 and 1934. By crafting its methods and message in a manner that appealed to middle- and upper-class women and men, the Oxford Group, led by Frank Buchman, revitalized the faith of many Canadians.2

the evangelist: frank buchman Frank Buchman was born in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania in 1878. The town lay in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, and though most of its inhabitants were American by birth, they remained resolutely German by choice. During the week, the newspapers were published in German, and on Sundays the service at the town’s only church – Lutheran Reformed – was conducted in German. When Frank was sixteen, the Buchman family moved to Allentown, where they opened a bar and hotel. A natural conversationalist, Frank chatted with patrons as he served drinks behind his father’s bar, and religion was a frequent topic.3 Buchman was intensely pietistic. He had longed to be a minister since childhood and, after secondary school, he attended Mount Airy, a Lutheran theological seminary in Germantown, Pennsylvania. More influential in his spiritual development, however, were his summers in Massachusetts at the Northfield Student Conferences organized by evangelist D.L. Moody. At the end of the nineteenth century, at conferences like Northfield, conservative and liberal Protestants worked together to achieve their common goals of converting individuals and Christianizing society. Buchman’s theology was formed by the evangelicalism at Northfield. From liberal Protestant leaders, Buchman inherited an aversion to discussion of death and judgment. In the years that followed, Buchman’s upbeat evangelism would make Christianity sound exciting and enjoyable. From conservatives, Buchman inherited a thirst for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. His ministry would emphasize what Christians could accomplish once they were filled by the Spirit. Buchman also was drawn to the imperative of spreading the gospel to all nations, a message propagated by Northfield organizer John Mott, the assistant general secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association. In addition, Mott

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underlined the importance of converting society’s present and future leaders. If evangelists focused their energies on the best and brightest students at the world’s universities, Mott contended, Christians could “evangelise the world in this generation.”4 In his initial attempts at evangelism, Buchman balanced individual conversion with an emphasis on social reform. After graduation from seminary in 1902 and ordination, he founded a hospice for impoverished young men in Philadelphia. The work prospered, but disagreements arose over finances. The members of the hospice financial board emphasized frugality; Buchman refused to cut back on the residents’ food and accommodation. When the two sides could not be reconciled, Buchman resigned in disgust. Still nursing a grudge against the members of the board, he attended the 1908 Keswick Convention in the Lake District of England and had a spiritual experience that altered the course of his life.5 Buchman had been introduced to the Keswick evangelistic message at Northfield. In the Lake District of England it transformed him. Welsh female evangelist Jessie Penn-Lewis was speaking in a small chapel to an audience of seventeen people, describing Christ’s suffering and death on the cross. Buchman had heard numerous sermons on the atonement. He had studied, written essays and exams, and preached on the subject many times. But this time it became a real and life-changing fact. Buchman recalled later that Penn-Lewis pictured the dying Christ as I had never seen Him pictured before. I saw the nails in the palms of His hands, I saw the bigger nail which held His feet. I saw the spear thrust in His side, and I saw the look of sorrow and infinite suffering in His face. I knew that I had wounded Him, that there was a great distance between myself and Him, and I knew that it was my sin of nursing ill-will … I saw my resentments against those men standing out like tombstones in my heart. I asked God to change me and He told me to put things right with them. It produced in me a vibrant feeling, as though a strong current of life had suddenly been poured into me and afterwards a dazed sense of a great spiritual shaking-up. There was no longer this feeling of a divided will, no sense of calculation and argument, of oppression and helplessness; a wave of strong emotion, following the will to surrender, rose up within me … and seemed to lift my soul from its anchorage of selfishness, bearing it across that great sundering abyss to the foot of the Cross.6

Convinced that his personal sins had caused Christ’s suffering, Buchman vowed to start his life anew with the help of the Holy Spirit. In order to repair the damage in his relationship with God and others, he immediately wrote the members of the hospice financial board,

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asking their forgiveness and quoting a popular hymn: “When I survey the wondrous Cross / On which the Prince of Glory died / My richest gain I count but loss / And pour contempt on all my pride.”7 Though an ordained Lutheran minister, Buchman had not experienced conversion before his visit to Keswick. Careful instruction in the Christian faith as a youth and seminary education as a young man had seemed sufficient preparation for a life of Christian service. Buchman now knew otherwise. For the next thirty years he would attempt to bring about a conversion experience in others, using his own experience as a template. He was convinced that a deep and lasting relationship with God required men and women to acknowledge their sin, experience a change of heart, and restore their relationships with others. Buchman returned to the United States and threw himself into university evangelism. From 1909 to 1915 he was based at Pennsylvania State College where he organized revivals, including one led by fundamentalist evangelist Billy Sunday. Most of Buchman’s work, however, was taken up with individual conversations with students. Early on, Buchman recognized that for many undergraduates the word “evangelism” conjured up images of “Cowboy Evangelists” like J.C. Kellogg, who mixed religion with forms of mass entertainment. Obviously, a new method was needed, something more in keeping with the refined culture of the university. In order to bring the gospel to these young men (women were rare among early twentieth-century American undergraduates), Buchman organized “house parties.” These were similar to the social parties that many undergraduates attended, except that the main topic of conversation was religion. At Buchman’s house parties, Christians mixed and mingled with potential converts, discussing how confession of sin and conversion had changed their lives. To this new method of evangelism was added a new language of Christian living. In 1909, Henry Wright, a college evangelist and professor of Latin History and Literature at Yale University, had published The Will of God and a Man’s Lifework. Through correspondence with Wright, and through reading his book, Buchman picked up the notion of “Guidance” (daily prayer) and the “Four Moral Absolutes,” which, it was argued, summed up Christ’s Sermon on the Mount.8 In 1915 Buchman left his chaplaincy work and took his innovative approach to evangelism and his new theological vocabulary to India and China. With the help of missionaries, he organized house parties and catalyzed revivals among the indigenous elites of these countries. In 1921 he moved to Britain and, for the next few years, concentrated his energy on the university campuses of Cambridge and

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Oxford, while holding a part-time position at Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut. His work in the United States was fraught with conflict; at one point he was banned from the campus of Princeton University. Both Time and Life magazines carried stories of Buchman’s work; Time chided Buchman’s attempts to address the sexual sins that seemed to plague his young male converts, while Life lauded his considerable success in converting undergraduates.9 Buchman also came to the attention of the British press as a result of an admiring account of his life and work published by journalist Harold Begbie in 1923. Referring to Buchman only by his initials, “F.B.,” Begbie’s Life Changers related how house parties organized by an American evangelist were resulting in a major revival of Christianity among Britain’s best and brightest young men.10 Buoyed by the increasing publicity and eager to try his new method of evangelism in other countries, Buchman led a team of young women and men through the Netherlands in 1927 and South Africa in 1928. Both ventures were deemed successes. The South African tour created a stir in the local press, which referred to the visitors as the “Oxford Group,” a name the peripatetic missionaries eagerly adopted.11 As the decade drew to a close, Buchman’s evangelistic message and methods were well established. As a Lutheran sensitive to his tradition, Buchman had learned that, as in the sixteenth century, a forceful leader could change the course of history. From Keswick holiness teaching he had acquired an emphasis on the confession and subsequent suppression of sin through the filling of the Holy Spirit. From Henry Wright at Yale he had received a contemporary language with which to spread his message of repentance and conversion. From John Mott at Northfield he had picked up the belief that through the conversion of the “best and brightest” he could “evangelize the world in this generation.” Buchman was convinced that the way to change the world was through the conversion of its leaders. But how could they be reached with the gospel when, in their minds, “evangelism” evoked the image of an ignorant fanatic spewing hellfire? Buchman developed an innovative way to overcome this resistance. In order to make his upper-class audiences feel at ease, he organized house parties that imitated the cocktail parties they frequently enjoyed. His style of evangelism was thus a mixture of the traditional and the modern, geared to appeal to the present and future leaders of the world. In the late autumn of 1932 Buchman organized an Oxford Group team to evangelize Canada. He had contact with mainstream Protestant leaders who were open to what he had to offer. Many English-

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speaking Protestant Canadians were convinced that their country was in desperate need of revival. Like the world’s other industrialized nations, Canada was struggling through the Great Depression. In the mid-1920s, products from Canadian forests, farms, and mines had found eager buyers. But the euphoria that came with rising profits did not last. On October 29, 1929 – “Black Tuesday” – stock markets around the world collapsed. It was the beginning of more than a decade of misery. Many Canadians believed that the Depression would be shortlived, but each potential recovery proved illusory. By 1933, the worst year of the Depression, one in four Canadians was unemployed; in some regions, 50 per cent of the population was without work. Maritime and western Canadians suffered most. On the Prairies, farmers endured both plummeting wheat prices and a ten-year drought. Misery in central Canada, though not as marked, was nevertheless significant. Factory closings in the industrial heartland of Ontario created high rates of unemployment. All told, one out of every three Canadian industrial workers lost his job; many of those who retained their positions were forced to work part-time, drawing wages that were barely adequate.12 Professional and middle-class Canadians suffered as well. Ruined businessmen found themselves in breadlines beside their former employees. In an era which championed self-reliance, few supports existed to aid the unemployed. There was no unemployment insurance, no health care for the poor, and little in the way of old-age pensions. Relief was the only option, but it carried a stigma. As a result, clothes were mended, appointments to the doctor cancelled, and trips to the grocery store postponed. Eventually, however, the clothes became threadbare, sickness prevailed, and hunger became intolerable. Pride was surrendered and feelings of embarrassment were sacrificed for the sake of survival. The Depression mentality was stifling. The churches attempted to ameliorate the situation, but each of the major mainstream denominations was struggling with its own problems. The Baptists in central Canada were rebuilding after a schism in 1928 precipitated by the teaching of perceived liberal doctrines in the denomination’s theological college. The United Church of Canada, which had been formed in 1925 as a result of a consensus among liberal Protestants, was struggling with the challenges of consolidating three denominations – Methodists, Congregationalists, and some Presbyterians – into one. One-third of Presbyterian congregations had refused to relinquish their independence and enter the union, and these Presbyterians mourned the weakening of their denomination.

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And Canadian Anglicans were attempting to deal with declining subsidies from the mother church in England.13 In addition to their particular problems, these churches faced several common challenges. The major mainstream Protestant denominations had experienced a small-scale exodus through the 1920s as disgruntled members cast their lot with new, self-consciously conservative denominations like Oswald J. Smith’s Peoples Church. Anxieties about the decline in mainstream adherents were further exacerbated by the rise in numbers of professing Roman Catholics and Jews among recent immigrants. The church bureaucracies were slow to respond to these challenges. As outlined in the previous chapter, the mainstream churches had enthusiastically adopted modern, efficient business practices in the early twentieth century. At the same time, individual churches had developed a host of programs in an attempt to make the church the centre of Canadians’ social lives. The modern management practices and ambitious expansion came back to haunt the churches during the Depression. Declining revenues forced churches to pull back from peripheral activities and their denominations to lay off staff and cut ministers’ salaries. Despite these efforts, church deficits ballooned.14 Some clergy responded to the crisis by championing the cause of religiously inspired societal reformation. In 1934 many of these ministers formed the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order (fcso). The new organization was based on two principles: that “the capitalist economic system is at variance with Christian principles” and “the creation of a new social order is essential to the realization of the Kingdom of God.” Through the 1930s, the fcso criticized the existing economic system and those who defended it.15 The solutions proposed by the fcso reflected the United Church’s social evangelistic emphasis, a powerful stream that had nourished mainstream denominational endeavours since the late nineteenth century. Flowing parallel to, and often converging with, this social stream was a more pietistic and private emphasis on individual conversion. At the same time that social reform advocates were organizing the fcso, other church leaders more sympathetic to individual expressions of piety were tapping into Canadians’ continued interest in personal evangelism. Leading the way, beginning in 1932, was the Oxford Group.16 The return to individual religion could be observed at various levels. In the theological colleges of the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s, historian William Hutchison notes, there was a “reappropriation of forms of Protestant Christianity that antedated all the modern theologies – liberalism, fundamentalism, and also

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humanism.” Many scholars came to the “common conviction that liberalism had failed and that something better – something more ‘realistic’ and more ‘biblical’ – must be found.” Biblical faith, the necessity of choice, certitude, and especially human sinfulness were given more attention by academics.17 There was a similar return to past verities among the Protestants who occupied the pews each Sunday. Many showed increased interest in the Bible, the concept of sin, and the need for a decisive conversion to Christ. This manner of thinking may be explained, in part, by the economic situation. The Depression had brought about a renewed seriousness in many Canadians. Unseen, impersonal economic forces had stolen their autonomy and independence. In their search for a source of stability, many turned to individual study and group discussion, and the church played a central role in this process. It was one of the few institutions that people could count on. As a western layman testified, “the bootleggers have gone, the movies have gone, credit is gone, social life is gone, but thank God the church remains.”18 The collective search for meaning resulted in a revival of personal piety. Before the arrival of the Oxford Group in late 1932, small evangelistic campaigns were being held in churches of various denominations.19 Many of the calls for revival came from the grassroots. A letter to the editor of the New Outlook in 1931 was plaintively titled “Are the Days of Revival Gone?”20 But this was not a simple longing for the verities of the past. In 1930, D.N. McLachlan, secretary of the United Church Board of Evangelism and Social Service, observed that “one of the chief characteristics in church life at the present time is the replacement of practical ethical emphases by a strong mystical emphasis. Books of the Social Gospel have largely been set aside in favour of manuals of devotion.” At the same time, McLachlan added, English-speaking Protestant Canadians were turning to “books on applied psychology and mental hygiene.”21 The Oxford Group’s appropriation of the language of psychology to communicate their gospel message would tap into this interest in both traditional faith and new scientific theories. Several church leaders responded to calls for a revival of personal religion by creating the Joint Committee for the Evangelization of Canadian Life. Initiated in 1932 by the United Church and chaired by George Pidgeon (the denomination’s first moderator), the joint committee was made up of evangelistically minded United Church members like John Hunter’s son, Ernest Crossley Hunter, as well as ministers from the Anglican, Presbyterian, and Convention Baptist Churches. The denominations that had worked together to host evangelists such as Crossley and Hunter in the late nineteenth century

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reunited to promote evangelism in the 1930s. The members of the joint committee recognized, according to one report, that “the present is … a period of disillusionment with much of our supposed material progress.”22 They were convinced that the source of the Depression lay not in the capitalist system, but in the hearts of individual Canadians. “The ultimate roots of the present economic and international anarchy are ethical,” the Joint Committee noted, “indicating wide departure from the thought of human life cherished by our Lord.”23 The solution to this problem lay in a revival of personal evangelism. The committee members applauded the various evangelistic meetings held throughout the country and hoped to consolidate these endeavours into a grand, pan-Canadian revival. They envisioned a series of services held – it was emphasized – in meeting-places other than church sanctuaries. But the committee, like many others in the bureaucratic mainstream denominations, became bogged down in its attempt to agree on a suitable evangelist, and little was accomplished. Several prominent church leaders in Great Britain were asked to lead the campaign (no one from the United States was considered); the Archbishop of York was contacted, but his schedule was full.24 During this period of indecision, the committee learned of the arrival of the Oxford Group. After disembarking at Montreal in October 1932, the team of thirty-two evangelists held meetings that drew impressive crowds. The Group members were a diverse bunch. Most were students and recent graduates; only eight held no connection with the university. Several were “worldly wise,” including Oxford student Reggie Holme, who had been a professional race-car driver. Frank Buchman was convinced that evangelism of this nature benefited from the presence of “young people who represent God in His attractiveness, in His excellence, and radiate His love by caring,”25 and the likes of Reggie Holme met this criterion. Several older, influential members added a cultured flavour to the Team. Among these were Vice-Admiral Sydney Drury-Lowe, of London, England, who had held various posts in the League of Nations; Baroness Lilian Van Keecheren Van Kell, of the Netherlands; and Oxford theologian L.W. Grensted, Oriel Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion.26 These men and women led evangelistic meetings that struck their audiences as altogether new. Where evangelists such as Oswald J. Smith used a church for their services, Buchman held his meetings in the ballrooms of Canada’s most illustrious hotels. Evangelists like Smith opened their services with prayer, moved on to lively gospel singing, read a passage from the Bible, and then preached. Buchman and his Team spoke of their own experiences. A mystified reporter for the United Church newspaper, the New Outlook, noted that “there

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has been no opening with singing, reading of Scripture, and prayers. Bibles are never seen; the Scriptures are never expounded and a prayer is seldom heard.”27 Was this really a revival? Each meeting opened with Buchman describing the work of the Oxford Group and introducing the speakers. A time of “Sharing” would then follow. The tone was light and informal; jokes and stories kept the crowd in good humour. Team members rose, stepped forward, and highlighted their past sins and former aimlessness, which had come to an end when they were “changed.” Following this sudden transformation, they enjoyed a personal relationship with God. He spoke directly to them through “Guidance” during quiet times and often intervened in their lives through miracles. To maintain this relationship with the divine, they followed a daily regimen of Guidance and lived according to the “Four Absolutes”: “Absolute Honesty, Absolute Purity, Absolute Unselfishness and Absolute Love.” Eager to bring about a similar experience in others, they had become “life-changers” and now related their personal change to others in what they called “sharing.” “God the Father,” “Jesus,” and the “Holy Spirit” were often alluded to, but the speakers did not present a formula or creed. After attending a meeting, one observer noted that “the great truths of Evangelical Christianity are apparently taken for granted.”28 Many knew that what they were hearing was evangelical Protestantism, but they had trouble being any more specific. The “After Meeting” followed, during which members of the audience could talk one-on-one with Buchman or the speakers. Conversions were common during this time and in the hours and days that followed. Those who were converts, or who wished to become believers, were also urged to attend one of the grand “House Parties,” held on a weekend at a major hotel. Away from the daily distractions of life, those who wanted to join the Group could be instructed further in the faith.29 The meetings in Montreal, the first city visited by the International Team, were a mixed success. Newspaper coverage was not what Buchman had hoped for, but the Team made an influential convert in Fred Dougall, editor of the Montreal Witness and Canadian Homestead. After attending an Oxford Group meeting, Dougall described how “a small group of men and women of culture and refinement … simply told of their personal experience of the saving power of Christ.” As a result of their testimony, “I was ‘changed,’ I ‘shared’ and the ebbing tides of my life seemed immediately to begin to rise … so the challenge came … to such as myself who had been members of churches from their youth up and busied with the affairs of the kingdom all their lives. It came as a rude jolt interrupting a life of

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the common place … and quickened us into new life.”30 Dougall took up the Oxford Group’s challenge to live each moment for God, and dedicated his newspaper, which had been a voice for evangelicalism from its mid-nineteenth-century inception, to furthering the Group’s goals in Canada. From 1932 on, Dougall included in the Witness a supplement comprised of articles, reviews, and reports on the activities of the International Team and the indigenous groups that emerged in the wake of the Oxford Group’s tours.31 From Montreal, the International Team travelled to Ottawa, where crowds of two thousand attended meetings in the ballroom of the Chateau Laurier. The Group became front-page news when someone who had attended an Oxford Group meeting sent a cheque for $12,200 to the National Revenue Department for duties owed on undeclared goods. (Other bits of so-called “conscience money” would appear as the tour progressed.) Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett, a pious Protestant who had taught Sunday School and who abstained from smoking, drinking, card-playing, and dancing, hosted the Oxford Group at a luncheon with his cabinet and their wives. “Speaking as a statesman,” Bennett told the International Team, “I am convinced that the influences you so powerfully represent are the only ones that can save the world.”32 After the campaign in the nation’s capital, the Group moved to the Ontario provincial capital, where they took over the entire fourth floor of the elegant King Edward Hotel. Crowds numbering four thousand packed the ballroom of the King Edward, as well as neighbouring churches. Ontario Premier George S. Henry welcomed the Group to Toronto, and forty-seven of the city’s ministers opened their pulpits to the International Team members on the opening Sunday of the campaign. Several leading citizens professed a “change,” including grocery store magnate P.T. Loblaw. In an interview with journalists published in the Montreal Witness, Loblaw recounted that “I’ve found something I’ve been seeking after all my life – to get over being a sham Christian; to have the spirit of Christianity right in me. It is the happiest feeling in the world.” Doing his part as a lifechanger, Loblaw encouraged the reporters to try conversion for themselves. “I tell you one thing,” he advised, “you’ll never regret it.”33 Loblaw’s observations seemed typical of many other English-speaking Protestant Canadians who were looking for revival and who found fulfillment in the message of the Oxford Group.34 While in central Canada, Buchman received a letter from his colleagues across the Atlantic asking him to return to Europe to lead a campaign there. Buchman refused; in January 1933 he informed a German friend in a letter that “there is no question but there is a

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revival on in Canada and we must centre our thought and action there.”35 After departing Toronto, the International Team visited Vancouver and Victoria, returned eastward and hosted a house party at the Banff Springs Hotel, and then visited Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, and Toronto and Montreal again briefly. The first Canadian tour concluded with a house party at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City in May 1933. After eight months in Canada, the Oxford Group returned to England and declared the tour a triumph. In the years that followed, Canada became a standard of Group success. In 1934 Buchman told a New York City audience that the possibility of a wide-spread revival was much higher in Englishspeaking Canada than in the United States. “I think Canada has the better chance because Canada still has what the United States lacks today in large measure,” Buchman reported. “Canada has a generation that knows the Bible, whereas there is that generation in between in the United States that simply does not know its Bible.”36 In the wake of the International Team’s campaign, indigenous groups formed in Canadian homes, secondary schools, and churches. In Toronto, for instance, George Pidgeon’s Bloor Street United Church supported four groups on its own. Pidgeon also organized a men’s luncheon to discuss how the Oxford Group’s methods could be applied at his church. Though part of the more liberal mainstream establishment, Pidgeon had been hoping, praying, and planning for a traditional revival, and preaching the need for personal conversion. He was one of a very small number of mainstream ministers who respected Oswald Smith, “a man” wrote Pidgeon, “who stands foursquare of the saving truth of the Gospel of Christ at the heart of a great city [who] deserves the gratitude of all interested in the Kingdom of God.”37 Though sensitive to the many shortcomings of the Oxford Group, Pidgeon was excited by its success and hoped to use the evangelistic momentum to create an indigenous Canadian evangelistic campaign.38 John Hunter’s son, the Reverend Ernest Crossley Hunter, formed a group at his Carleton Street United Church. Several business leaders took the initiative and met weekly in the King Edward Hotel. Some of these groups imitated the International Team and visited towns and cities that had not witnessed the Oxford Group first-hand. In Winnipeg, a total of thirty indigenous groups were registered, and in January of 1934, local Groupists hosted a house party at Winnipeg’s Royal Alexandria Hotel attended by 2,400 people.39 In addition to these new groups, church organizations such as young people’s societies adopted some of the language and techniques of the Oxford Group. In Saskatoon, for example, a chapter of

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the Woman’s Auxiliary announced that it would henceforth conduct itself according to Oxford Group principles. The Auxiliary’s former practices of prayer and bible study would continue, with the addition of sharing. The Oxford Group supplement in the Montreal Witness carried numerous stories of how other church societies were adapting the style of the International Team to their own purposes. Ministers testified to an increased interest in spiritual matters, with one marvelling that, for the first time in his career, the weekly prayer meetings at his church continued through the summer. For months and years after the departure of the International Team, the Oxford Group’s influence resonated in the lives of Canadians.40

the message: “just the old gospel of jesus christ” The central objective of Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group was to bring their listeners to experience a conversion or life change. This event was preceded by a recognition of sinfulness and followed by a commitment to live according to the direction of the Holy Spirit. In these and other ways Buchman’s message was rooted in the nineteenth-century evangelical tradition. At the same time, however, his message grew out of twentieth-century liberal Protestantism and its openness to modern ideas. Liberals in this period emphasized God’s immanence: they believed that God worked in the world through natural means, rather than upon it. In their pursuit of knowledge, liberals looked to modern ways of understanding the world first, and to the Bible or the creeds and traditions of the church second.41 Like Oswald J. Smith, Buchman accommodated his message to English-speaking Canadians’ concerns about health and another world war. Yet where Smith, as a fundamentalist, preached supernatural healing, Buchman, reflecting his roots in liberal Protestantism, incorporated the modern science of psychology. Where Smith predicted Christ’s imminent return, Buchman told his listeners that, through their own labours, they could help bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth. Both traditional and liberal, Buchman’s message struck an effective balance with mainstream Protestants. The terminology of the Oxford Group was novel but, according to Buchman, the core concepts of evangelical Christianity were unchanged. Buchman told an audience in Toronto: “we bring nothing new – just the old Gospel of Jesus Christ.”42 Some listeners were struck by how “old,” indeed, how nineteenth-century, this message sounded. One observer noted that “the doctrine of a changed life is another expression for conversion; that sharing is the modern variant

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of Methodist class meetings; life-changers were the same as soulwinners, absolute honesty, purity and love was the same as the Methodist doctrine of Christian perfection.”43 Like many evangelists, Buchman considered theology irrelevant; conversion was paramount. “Look after the Practice and the Theory will look after itself,”44 Buchman remarked. The lack of doctrinal definition led Swiss theologian Emil Brunner to label the Groupists “theological gypsies.”45 But there was a distinct advantage to this vagabond creed – it allowed the listener to syncretize his or her beliefs with the Group’s message. Queen’s College (Oxford) Provost B.H. Streeter, a well-known modernist theologian and Group sympathizer, sent a telegram to the evangelists in North America: “Tell them,” he advised his Oxford Group friends, “that I regard this Movement as the most vital thing in Christianity today; and tell them that I take my own theology into it.”46 A life change was necessary because all were sinners. Buchman was obsessed with rooting out sin; to English Oxford Group apologist Harold Begbie, this was “the distinguishing characteristic of his work.”47 Sin was broadly defined; a member of the International Team told an Ottawa audience that “sin is anything that keeps you from God or another person.”48 Certain sins appeared to be more common than others, however. While working as a chaplain on the campus of Penn State, Buchman had been struck by how often sins of “social purity” – a euphemism for premarital sex and masturbation – surfaced in his conversations with undergraduates. The latter vice became Buchman’s chief concern. He related that “from eighty to ninety per cent of all youths in the adolescent stage have sexual problems, and many of them are troubled by secret sins affecting their sex life … They are in great need of sympathetic understanding and help from mature persons.”49 Candid talk about sexuality was common in the early twentieth century. Many were especially concerned about the dangers of sexual self-indulgence. The greatest single danger to humanity, according to businessman and sexual purity spokesman John Harvey Kellogg, was the “secret vice” of masturbation.50 Publications from the United States and Britain cautioned young people and their parents about the dangers of sexual sin. In English Canada, various agencies could be found claiming that “intelligent purity is supremely better than blind innocence.”51 Through the first three decades of the twentieth century, lecturers like Arthur W. Beall, the Ontario wctu’s “purity agent,” and William L. Clark, the Methodist Church’s Department of Temperance and Moral Reform representative, mixed Victorian morality with science in lectures to school children and young men.52

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The content of these presentations varied. Clark eschewed judgmentalism; Beall, in contrast, ruminated on the hazards of masturbation. Buchman would have felt more comfortable with the latter approach. While modern in his openness to discussion of sexual sin, Buchman was Victorian in his concern with self-control. In the late nineteenth century, evangelicals like Crossley and Hunter had railed against such pastimes as dancing which seemed to encourage unfettered passions. In the 1930s, the emphasis on Absolute Purity reflected a similar concern. As one of Buchman’s American colleagues remarked, “God-control is the best birth-control.”53 The other, more circumspect, members of the International Team preferred to speak of sins of self-centredness. “In the ‘I’ in the word sin,” they often observed, “lies the secret of Sin’s power.”54 Through the confession of sin, their relationships with others had been renewed, and Absolute Honesty had begun to govern their lives. On occasion, confession proved to be more of a problem than a solution. It was reported, for instance, that “one college chaplain was induced to resign by undergraduates commonly coming to him and asking him to forgive them for having described him as the worst chaplain at Oxford.”55 But to the Oxford Group members in Canada, confession had entailed only positive results. They testified that a sense of intimacy had developed among those who had shared their frustrations and disappointments. Others had felt relief after airing their guilty consciences. Having acknowledged their personal failures, they had begun anew. The first step, they counselled their audiences, was to make restitution, just as Buchman had done in Keswick. Convert V.C. Kitchen told a meeting of Ottawa converts in 1934 that “you have got to face up to sin. I did. I had to make a cheque to my partner for over-charged expense accounts. He said I was crazy. I think he was afraid of being struck with the same form of insanity.”56 Confessing sin and making restitution was central to completing the life change. Sounding remarkably like Oswald J. Smith, Buchman told a New York audience in 1934 that “the people of the world are divided into only two classes, the ‘changed’ and the ‘unchanged.’”57 People needed to go through this conversion experience, “whatever their theological inheritance.”58 The Group did not make explicit its theology on life change in the manner of earlier doctrinaire evangelists like Reuben Torrey. However, the Oxford Group’s approach made reference to key nineteenthcentury evangelical doctrines, including the theory of atonement. International Team members like Samuel Shoemaker, an Episcopalian minister in New York City and leading light for the Oxford Group in North America, made frequent reference to “the Cross.”59 George

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Pidgeon noted that he had “heard Dr. Buchman give as strong a statement about Christ’s redemptive work as I have heard anywhere.”60 Like Pidgeon, Buchman was convinced that Christ’s death on the cross served as a substitutionary atonement for the sins of humanity. By professing a life change, converts accepted Christ’s sacrifice on their behalf, were forgiven of their sins by God the Father, and could enter into a personal relationship with Christ. In Christ they would find a friend, always ready to help with whatever was needed. Addressing a Montreal audience, Buchman remarked that “Jesus Christ was very human, very natural, very friendly.”61 In a world fraught with the chaos of the Depression, unemployment, relief lines, and psychological insecurity, the “changed” could find comfort in a personal relationship with Christ. Maintaining that relationship required daily contact through prayer. Buchman championed the practice of daily devotions, which he called “Guidance.” Historian Richard Ostrander points out that early twentieth-century liberal Protestant leaders who stressed God’s immanence in the world promoted a kind of “windmill” devotional life which encouraged Christians to remain open to the gentle breezes of God’s Holy Spirit. Where fundamentalist Oswald J. Smith read a passage of scripture, meditated on what God had said through the Bible, and then responded through spoken prayer, Buchman waited for God’s Holy Spirit to nudge him directly.62 George Buxton, a Cambridge undergraduate and Groupist in the 1920s, noted that Buchman “certainly based what he said on the Bible, but he rarely spoke from it directly or spoke holding one – he said it might put off worldly people.”63 Wanting to avoid any association with the fire-breathing zealots who had given evangelism a bad name, Buchman left his Bible in his hotel room. Though references to Bible-reading were rare among the testimonies of International Team members, Canadians who attended Oxford Group meetings apparently turned to their Bibles with increasing frequency. International Team member Francis Gouldin remarked in Manitoba’s capital city that “Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary, I hear, have run out of Bibles since the Oxford Group team visited these centres. That may happen in Winnipeg, too.”64 That was certainly the case in other countries: sales of Bibles increased by 34 per cent after an Oxford Group campaign in Norway in 1934.65 By avoiding discussion of biblical authority, Buchman avoided the divisive controversy surrounding historical criticism. Liberal biblical scholars viewed higher criticism as a way of discovering biblical truth. Fundamentalists rejected the new learning, and contended that the Bible could be interpreted literally and applied directly to

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contemporary life. Buchman’s roots in the liberal Protestant tradition made him equivocal. At no point during his Canadian tour did he spell out – in the manner of fundamentalists like Oswald J. Smith – his position on the scriptures. Oxford Group convert and writer A.J. Russell explained that Buchman viewed the Bible as a “series of movies,” stories of events long ago that could recur in the lives of men and women in the 1900s.66 Rather than using scripture as an authority for Christian faith, Buchman placed the emphasis on experience. In this way, he dropped one important aspect of nineteenth-century evangelicalism while he maintained another. Buchman promoted the experience of God’s presence through what he called “two-way prayer.” As noted above, he believed that God influenced the thoughts of believers, who simply needed to be open to His nudging. “God gave a man two ears and one mouth. Why don’t we listen more than we talk?”67 he asked a Montreal audience. Buchman recommended that listeners use a pen and notebook to jot down their thoughts as prompted by God; in this way they could easily recall, and act upon, divine counsel. This approach to devotional life had points of contact with the nineteenth-century evangelical concern with the power of the Holy Spirit. Frustrated by the abstract speculation of theologians, some Victorian Christians had emphasized the daily experience of God’s presence.68 Out of Buchman’s experiences at Northfield and later at Keswick came a deep-seated conviction that God sought a continual relationship with His people. God was not an uncaring, angry, remote divinity. He was a loving friend, always close at hand. In order to maintain God’s presence, Buchman’s converts were counselled to live according to the Four Absolutes. These were often referred to as a summary of Christ’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, and expressed the moral backbone of the Christian faith. The Four Absolutes coincided well with twentieth-century English-speaking Canadian middle-class morality. The sexual liberties of the Roaring Twenties had given way to conservatism in the decade that followed. The shift was manifested in fashion; in the 1930s, observes a historian, skirts were lengthened and the image of the “blase and sophisticated flapper” was “replaced by the girl next door.”69 In the Oxford Group’s Absolutes, men and women confused by the perceived breakdown of sexual and moral norms could again find touchstones for Christian living. Oxford Group converts professed a profound happiness as a result of living according to the Four Absolutes. Many felt a sense of spiritual confidence despite their difficult circumstances. Letters to the editor of the Montreal Witness testified to the ways in which Oxford

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Group practices had changed English-speaking Canadians’ lives and their relationships with one another. Some of the stories were remarkable, such as the alcoholic who professed to having been freed of his addiction after being converted. Others were more prosaic: one mother related the ways in which she and her five-year-old daughter benefited from their sharing and quiet time together.70 Whether this experience reflected a Wesleyan Holiness emphasis on the “eradication” of sinful nature or the Keswick notion of the “suppression” of sin seemed to be in the eye of the beholder. In an article published in the Canadian Baptist in 1932, the Reverend Charles George Smith contended that the Oxford Group held to the notion of “the expulsive power of this new affection – which expels everything in their personalities contrary to love, and destroyed the old sinful selflife.”71 Another observer, however, viewed this as an ongoing process, with the changed individual asking for constant forgiveness.72 Coupled with inner piety was outward action. All those who had been changed were expected to become life changers who would share their experience in order to convert others. This was not accomplished through preaching; the abuse of mass evangelism had made preaching an object of scorn in the minds of some. Christians needed to form personal relationships with potential converts. According to International Team member Samuel Shoemaker, “the real object of the Oxford Group” was “to get people to talk about themselves, about their problems.”73 In a society that was becoming increasingly impersonal, this emphasis was welcomed by many. The Group’s approach to witnessing made personal relationships the ultimate priority. As a result, individual members often enjoyed a sense of intimacy with each other.74 Buchman made no mention of heaven or hell or an afterlife of any kind; his message was rooted in liberal Protestantism’s concern for this world. In contrast, Oswald J. Smith made constant references to life after death. The world was an evil place for Smith; Christians must separate themselves, live righteously according to God’s commands, and await their reward in heaven. But for Buchman, the world had the potential to be a good place. Christians should enter into it and attempt to mould it according to God’s direction. Heaven was not the focus of Buchman’s energies – he was after victory on earth. That victory included a healthy body. In the years following the First World War, as noted in chapter 2, physical and psychic health had become a primary concern. As a result, healing fads of various sorts flourished. Christian Science and Mind Cure gained adherents, and millions repeated Emil Coue’s famous mantra, “day by day in every way I am getting better and better.”75 In English Canada, evangelists

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attempted to draw audiences to their messages on sin and salvation by incorporating health and healing issues. In the 1920s, Hugh Crossley had organized meetings that had featured equal parts calisthenics and the gospel, and Oswald J. Smith had promoted healing services that concluded with an altar call. As a fundamentalist, Smith had emphasized God’s supernatural intervention in the health of men and women. Reflecting his connections to liberal Protestantism, Buchman emphasized the ways in which people could use modern science to promote healing and incorporated the language of psychology into his message in an attempt to promote conversion. Buchman’s earlier connection with universities as a chaplain and an evangelist made him keenly sensitive to changing intellectual developments. The rise of the social sciences and the emphasis on the scientific technique had a direct impact on his approach to evangelism in general, and healing in particular. His line of thinking can be traced to Henry Drummond, a Scottish geologist and evangelist who had been invited by D.L. Moody to make a presentation at the second summer student conference at Northfield in 1881. Drummond had observed that, while medical students were required to engage in detailed clinical work, while seminarians rarely practised “any direct dealing with men.” To fill the void, Drummond had pioneered a “science” of helping individuals which employed a clear technique for teaching spiritual truths.76 Drawing on Drummond’s methodological approach to conversion, Buchman packaged Christianity in a format that was easily understood, with a language that echoed the sciences. After “diagnosing” sin, Oxford Group apologist Harold Begbie noted, Buchman “uses the knife, for he is a surgeon and no dispenser of drugs. He doesn’t believe in narcotics; he believes in eradicating the disease, cutting it clean out by the roots.”77 Tapping into the increasing prestige of the medical sciences, Buchman made his evangelism sound systematic. “Life changers” appeared to be professionals, practising a verified “technique” of conversion. In this way Buchman moulded the Christian message into a form that resonated in a quasi-scientific intellectual culture.78 More specifically, Buchman accommodated his message of the gospel to the science of psychology. In its initial guise, psychology seemed to dismiss religion. To Freud, the “soul” was simply the accumulation of an individual’s life experiences. Many medical doctors were similarly derisive of religion’s intrusion into their realm.79 Not everyone agreed, however. As late as the nineteenth century, cleric-physicians had served the bodily needs of those who could neither afford nor, in some cases, find a proper physician. In the twentieth century many ministers believed that they still had a role

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in healing mental illness. Historian Laurence Moore notes in this period a “rising popularity of the belief that Christian ministers had an important role to play as ‘counsellors’, that is, as servants of mental health. Protestants … especially liberals, felt obligated to do what they could to affect an alliance between psychological insight and their own views about the causes of human misery.”80 Fundamentalists like Smith promoted miracles of physical healing. Liberals, however, distanced themselves from supernatural cures. According to contemporary Charles Reynolds Brown, dean of Yale Divinity School, those interested in faith healing were found “on the frontiers of discriminating intelligence.”81 Instead, leaders in mainstream denominations like the American Episcopal Church urged ministers interested in healing to take psychological training to ensure that they worked in tandem with “physician, surgeon, and psychiatrist.”82 Some liberal ministers took up the challenge and attempted to bridge the gap between religion and psychology.83 They were responding to the needs of many in Britain, the United States, and Canada. Historian T.J. Jackson Lears contends that changes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, including urbanization, technological development, and the increasing interdependence of the market economy led to feelings of unreality among some Americans. As a result, he notes, the period marked a “crucial moral change … from a Protestant ethos of salvation through self-denial toward a therapeutic ethos stressing self-realization in this world – an ethos characterized by an almost obsessive concern with psychic and physical health defined in sweeping terms.” In response to this need, notes Lears, “ministers and other moralists began increasingly to conform to medical models in making judgments and dispensing advice.”84 Buchman was one of the most successful, and responded to the desires of English-speaking Canadians with characteristic vigour. He often referred to himself as a “human engineer,”85 and observers frequently agreed. Two British commentators remarked that while it might be unfair to characterize the evangelist as a “Freudian Psychologist,” the description was not far off.86 Two of the leading advocates of the rapprochement between psychology and Protestantism were avid supporters: both liberal Anglican professor-clergyman L.W. Grensted and theologian Leslie Weatherhead toured Canada with the International Team. During the 1932 Canadian campaign, Grensted hosted a tea attended by the entire department of psychology of the University of Toronto.87 J.S. Bonnell, minister of Westminster United Church in Winnipeg, who combined psychological insights and Christianity in his development of a pastoral psychiatry, was supportive of the work of the Group, and at least one psychologist testified

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to the improvement of patients involved with the evangelists.88 Buchman’s American lieutenant, Samuel Shoemaker, went further: he expected the Group’s message to replace psychology. The limits of science were plain, he stated. “Psychology is better at analysis than on synthesis; better on diagnosis than on cure … Nothing but God is ever adequate as a final rest for the human emotions.”89 Open to new ideas, including insights into the human psyche, Buchman accommodated his message to aspects of scientific culture. In this way, he sought to ensure that evangelical Christianity remained relevant to educated men and women. On the one hand, Buchman’s use of psychology reflected the liberal Protestant practice of drawing on modern intellectual ideas to reinterpret evangelical doctrines. On the other hand, Buchman’s theology held to the traditional nineteenthcentury evangelical emphasis on the need for an instantaneous conversion. Psychology was simply another tool to bring about this experience. Buchman’s ministry was an effective balance of the old and the new, an approach that appealed to English-speaking Protestant Canadians who were busy reading both “manuals of devotion” and “books on applied psychology and mental hygiene.”90 A similar mix of modern and traditional is evident in Buchman’s response to the chaos of the Depression and the looming military conflict. As the economy collapsed, many Canadians examined the economic, social, and political structures of their day and found them lacking. In cities like Regina, politics were so pervasive that littleleague softball teams were named after political parties. On summer Saturdays baseball diamonds hosted games between young “Conservatives” and “Liberals,” “ccfers” and “Social Crediters.” Calls for change echoed throughout the country, and the collective frustration altered the political landscape. Prominent Canadians who had previously displayed little interest in politics now found themselves leading new parties. The most important of these new political movements were rooted in Protestantism. One side of the Canadian Protestant spectrum came to the fore in Alberta, where fundamentalist evangelist and radio preacher William “Bible Bill” Aberhart formed the Social Credit party. Aberhart adopted the economic theories of C.H. Douglas and promised a monthly dividend of twenty-five dollars to each Albertan. A simplistic solution to difficult economic problems, “Social Credit” was nonetheless welcomed by people ready to try anything to end their misery, and Aberhart won the 1935 provincial election in a landslide. The other side of Protestantism was represented in politics by the former social gospeller J.S. Woodsworth, who lead the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (ccf). Its solution to the problems of the Depression was equally comprehensive.

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The last line of the ccf’s “Regina Manifesto,” adopted in 1933, declared that “no ccf government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and put into operation the full program of socialized planning which will lead to the establishment in Canada of the Cooperative Commonwealth.” Canadians hungry for a solution to the era’s economic problems helped the ccf make rapid electoral headway.91 Frank Buchman was another religious leader who offered a catchall solution to the Depression. The Oxford Group’s primary purpose – to be a catalyst of individual conversions – was presented as a way of fixing Canadians’ lives, and also as a way of creating the building blocks for national reformation. This notion resonated deeply; as far as many English-speaking evangelical Protestants were concerned, individual conversion was the starting point for social change. While social reformers found the root cause of the Depression in the capitalist system, many Canadians believed that the problem lay within. In 1933, Canadian social scientist Gilbert Jackson identified human sin as the cause of the Depression. The economic turmoil would only end, Jackson argued, when Canadians overcame their selfishness through inner contemplation. Even socially radical clergyman Ernest Thomas, a member of the reform-oriented Fellowship for a Christian Social Order, agreed that no “radical changes” could take place in Canadian society without “a change of mind and heart” that came from repentance for sin. Days after the International Team left Regina in the spring of 1933, Saskatchewan’s deputy minister of Railways, Labor and Industries, Thomas Molby, made the same argument in a speech at a conference on unemployment. The only cure for the Depression, he contended, was “the strict observance of Christian principles as between employer and employee.”92 Three years later, Liberal leader W.L. Mackenzie King, a master at reading and reflecting the public mood, would become prime minister by asserting that “what is needed more than a change of economic structure, is a change of heart.” Unemployment, he would tell voters, was the result of human selfishness, not the economic system. A solution could only come from within.93 Individual life change could also spill over national borders and affect the world at large. “The modern equivalent of war is lifechanging,”94 Buchman told an audience in Canada’s capital. In this way he updated the goal articulated by Mott at Northfield in the 1890s: to “evangelize the world in this generation.” Buchman’s comments to the people of Regina were typical: “the world today is faced with two alternatives: riot or revival. Through the medium of the Oxford Group, revival will win, and the nations of the world will be faced with a new relationship.”95

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During the same speech he boasted that the Oxford Group was helping to bring about “a world revolution in the work of Christ.”96 The reference to “revolution” was deliberate. Like Smith, Buchman was convinced that the world was entering a period of crisis. A central player in this crisis was the ussr. Fundamentalists like Smith were convinced that the “last days” would witness a battle between the communist Antichrist and Jesus. Liberal Protestants, however, dismissed this premillennialist eschatology. In his book, Millennial Hope, leading liberal Shirley Jackson Case, professor of church history at the University of Chicago and a native Canadian, argued that it was “sheer nonsense to talk dolefully about the gradual deterioration of society to a student of history … Modern scientific thinking is fundamentally optimistic in its outlook upon the world’s future … The ills of life are to be cured by a gradual process of remedial treatment rather than by sudden annihilation.”97 Buchman was similarly optimistic, though he considered the political challenge to be substantial. As he saw it, the looming battle was not between Jesus and the communist Antichrist (as Smith depicted the conflict), but between the Western democratic powers and the Soviet Union. Buchman believed that democracy rested on the collective strength of its individual parts, which he was attempting to strengthen through individual conversions. Buchman reflected the concerns of many leading Canadians. The rise of the ccf and the Communist Party of Canada panicked business leaders, newspaper editors, church leaders, and politicians. Prime Minister Bennett outlawed the Communist Party and jailed its leaders, while ministers fretted over the churches’ potential loss of young people to the “religion of communism.” The observations of the Reverend Russell Harris were representative of many clergy in the 1930s. In a letter to George Pidgeon, Harris related that he “was told yesterday that the Communist party is proceeding to organize very extensively throughout Canada an educational campaign to reach boys and girls and young people … I fancy that they may force us to do some thinking.”98 The Oxford Group responded to this concern. An advertisement for the 1933 Chateau Frontenac House Party stated the problem forthrightly: “Unless somehow we of His Church can wake up living, corporate enthusiasm for His ‘plan of salvation,’ on the same scale as that with which Russia has watched and worked for the Soviet’s ‘Five-Year Plan,’ there are already signs that we shall see, and deserve to see, many of the best of our own younger folk go over to Communism.”99 The world was in a state of chaos because of the collective failure of Anglo-American men and women, Group members testified. “Is

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the British Empire really showing the way out to the world today?” asked International Team member Vice-Admiral Sidney Drury-Lowe in Ottawa in 1932. “We can’t honestly say that it is, and the reason is because we aren’t facing up to our problems personally.”100 The imperialist rhetoric predominated during the Oxford Group’s second tour of Canada in 1934. The Ottawa Citizen in March 1934 reported Buchman’s observation that “Countries have been captured by Nazism, Communism, and other ‘isms’ … but … English-speaking countries might lead the way to harmonious world conditions by submitting to capture by real Christianity.”101 The notion of “leading the way” was reflected in “Pioneers,” the Oxford Group anthem composed during the Banff House Party in 1934: “All the past we leave behind / We take up the task eternal / And the burden and the holding, daring, venturing / so we go the unknown ways, Pioneers, O Pioneers!”102 They had the answer to humanity’s problems: strengthen the Western world through individual conversions.

methods “suited to the age” In the same way that he accommodated his message to the sensibilities of his audiences, Buchman accommodated his methods. He did not market evangelism in the manner of Oswald J. Smith, who drew on popular commercial culture to attract an audience. Buchman knew that many middle- and upper-class men and women found Smith’s entertaining spectacles embarrassing. Cowboy evangelists like J.C. Kellogg were too reminiscent of Elmer Gantry – the fraudulent revival preacher of Sinclair Lewis’s satiric novel. The books published by Lewis in the 1920s, Dodsworth, Babbitt, Arrowsmith, Main Street, and especially Elmer Gantry, were sharply critical of ministers in general and evangelists in particular, and the literary establishment ate it up. On the basis of these novels, Lewis earned the Nobel Prize for literature, the first American to win the award.103 Refined men and women were not bothered by the fusion of religion and commercial culture per se; what upset them was the type of commerciality personified by evangelists. In the late 1800s North American elites had felt firmly in control of culture, but that had changed at the turn of the century as workers headed to carnivals and other “popular” destinations that scandalized the upper classes.104 Oswald J. Smith’s missions fairs felt too close to the commercial culture the elites rejected. They could never be seen at a service like that. As a result, Buchman emphatically rejected the approach of Smith and his colleagues. The vehemence with which the Oxford Group leader distinguished his services from those that had gone before

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testifies to the degree to which revivalism had been commodified in Canada. Influential English-speaking Canadians who differentiated themselves from the masses and their “leisure” were looking for a refined kind of evangelism that reflected their sophisticated tastes. In order to draw them to his services, Buchman drew on elite commercial culture and packaged his message in “high-brow” forms. Oxford Group meetings were held in Canada’s most expensive hotels, where potential converts could mix prayer with tennis and bible study with fine dining. In many ways, Buchman’s was an unrevival revival. The entertainment aspect of show-business mass evangelism was replaced by a combination of elitism and low-key informality. Buchman never referred to himself as a minister; he was a “lecturer in personal evangelism.” Oxford Group evangelists were not trained preachers, standing behind a pulpit, holding a Bible. Instead they were “ordinary” people who conversed with their listeners. It was evangelism, but it certainly did not look like it. Buchman’s goal was to reawaken a torpid and listless body of believers. The task was summed up in Samuel Shoemaker’s book The Conversion of the Church. According to the Oxford Group apologist, mainstream church ministers had become preoccupied with church activities to the detriment of the salvation of individuals. The criticism hit home. Since the late 1800s, mainstream Protestant churches had been transformed into “social congregations” offering a panoply of services in an attempt to make the church the centre of community life. Church members appreciated the numerous opportunities to gather with their friends, and the institutional churches helped build a sense of community that strengthened the congregation. But by focusing members’ attention inward on their private “church family” the churches did little for the sake of evangelism. Furthermore, the maintenance of these activities required a significant amount of a minister’s time, and clerical converts at Oxford Group meetings frequently confessed their absorption with “church business” instead of people.105 While the clergy could play a central role in organizing revivals, the Oxford Group intended to revitalize Christianity by invigorating lay workers. Like other religious reformers, Buchman distrusted the “religious establishment” and its institutions. In his opinion, they had failed in their task of bringing Christianity to the world. He found meaning instead in a personal encounter with Christ, an experience that he wanted to share. Buchman was convinced that “regular men and women,” and not religious specialists, would be most effective in this endeavour. His strategy was well timed: the opening decades of the twentieth century, according to one scholar, were marked by

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a push by the laity for increasing participation in mainstream church life and a concomitant movement away from an all-controlling clerical elite.106 In revivalism, this trend toward lay participation was manifested in the Oxford Group. For their part, Buchman and his colleagues believed that their lay evangelism was more in keeping with the practice of the New Testament church. Echoing the book of Acts, or “the Acts of the Apostles,” which chronicled the coming of the Holy Spirit to Christ’s followers at Pentecost and the subsequent spread of Christianity, promotional material often referred to the Group’s activities as “The Acts of the Modern-Day Apostles.” In letters to the Montreal Witness, indigenous Canadian Groups alluded to their activities as, for instance, “The Acts of the Ottawans” and titled their testimonies “A Personal Pentecost.”107 They believed that the changes being wrought through the Oxford Group were the work, not of the church, but of God Himself. In the same way that the Holy Spirit had changed the world by coming to Christ’s followers at Pentecost, so He was changing it by coming to Canadians in 1932. The difference from typical evangelism was apparent to the editor of the Regina Leader-Post, who attended an Oxford Group presentation to the Regina Canadian Club. The speeches, the editor observed, “weren’t delivered with the gusto and almost apostolic fervour of a camp meeting or an evangelistic tirade in some obscure hall. And it was intelligent, educated, yea refined testimony. The speakers were men and women of culture, students of affairs, persons ‘well up’ on things.”108 This was not the gaudy, professionalized hucksterism of some twentieth-century revivalists. These evangelists were cultured, informed individuals, whose feet were planted firmly on the ground. The straightforward style of the meetings also set the Oxford Group apart from other evangelistic endeavours, while simultaneously aligning it with upper-class culture. During their public services, no prayers were offered and no creeds recited. Hymn singing and solo performances were an important feature of early twentiethcentury revivalism and church life, but no music was heard at Oxford Group meetings. Singing was not a part of contemporary social gatherings and so was not a part of Buchman’s religious house parties. Early twentieth-century cocktail parties were clubby, exclusive affairs, and the Oxford Group versions were no different. Weekday gatherings featured black ties, evening gowns, and cultured conversation, while weekend parties mixed prayer meetings with tennis and other recreational pursuits. Religion was presented as something natural, even enjoyable. There was no need to separate it from other leisure pursuits – it could be the central part of a relaxing weekend.

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In the late nineteenth century Crossley and Hunter had incorporated entertainment into their religious services and thereby justified recreation to their audiences. They sought to cover the secular with the sacred, and so leisure was brought into the religious sphere. Similarly, in the 1930s the Oxford Group used house parties to promote leisure as an integral aspect of a Christian life. Recreation was not a threat to religion: like Crossley and Hunter, they were confident that they could sacralize all aspects of Canadian culture. Those who had suffered significant economic setbacks during the Depression especially appreciated the opportunity to reconstruct part of their social life, and the Oxford Group was happy to provide opportunities for this. The Reverend Canon A.P. Gower-Ress, the rector of Montreal’s St. George’s Church and a sympathetic observer of the Group, drew a parallel to “the Parisian artist who startled even Paris by his daring in painting the Christ in modern costume … standing in the midst of the follies, jostled by the gay and frivolous crowd.” In the same way, the Oxford Group “introduces Him with intriguing ease of manner, and absence of self-consciousness into the rendezvous of ease and pleasure.”109 The choice of venues also reflected Buchman’s flair for the the dramatic – in 1935 he would stage a House Party in Hamlet’s castle of Elsinore in Kronborg, Denmark.110 Some took offense at this extravagance during the dark days of the Depression. A reporter for the populist Toronto Telegram wondered aloud why the “followers of a humble and poverty smitten Master had rented, for ten whole days, the whole fourth floor of Toronto’s second largest hotel.” Would it not be better to give that money to the poor, rather than spending it on expensive accommodation? the reporter queried.111 Buchman often pointed out that only hotels provided the kind of facilities necessary to his work, including telephones and large and small meeting rooms. That answer did not seem sufficient. Buchman used hotels for another reason, of course. Most of the available churches were of the amphitheatre design that had been popular during the Protestant church-building boom of the late nineteenth century. This layout focused attention on the minister, something that the lay-oriented Oxford Group wanted to avoid. The twentieth century heralded a movement away from this style of church architecture and towards a new ecclesiasticism in both Canada and the us. The prevailing attitude was summed up in an article in the American Congregationalist journal, Church Building Quarterly. Describing the new Winter Hill Church in Somerville, Massachusets, a contributor to the journal observed that the centre of the new church was “a sanctuary and nothing else. No perversity of fancy could construe it as a lecture room or

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concert hall. In the arrangement of the pews there is suggestion surely of a church – not the faintest of a theatre.”112 Where pulpits had once stood on the middle of a raised platform, highlighting the performance of the minister, they were lowered and pushed to the side. In Canada as well, the new emphasis in mainstream Protestantism was on the worship of the congregants. Elegant stained glass windows were installed to cultivate uplifting thoughts.113 The architectural changes signalled a shift in the attitudes of mainstream churchgoers away from “entertaining” religion. Canadians immersed in a commercial culture wanted their religion to feel different, and the Oxford Group tapped into this impulse by removing from their meetings the showmanship that had characterized forms of revivalism a generation earlier. While this architectural turn away from entertainment would have provided a suitable venue for Buchman’s evangelism, these new buildings were few and far between in 1930s Canada – and they were still churches. The Oxford Group had to set itself apart from organized religion. The Reverend Lloyd C. Douglas, minister at Montreal’s St. James United Church, alluded to this extra-ecclesiastical emphasis when he noted that “the Group Movement is required to stage its activities in the normal setting with which the highly privileged feel most familiar and at ease.”114 Buchman’s mission was targeted to the “up-andouts” who had long ago lost interest in religion. By holding house parties in hotel ballrooms, rather than church sanctuaries, he underscored the Oxford Group’s separateness from the institutional church. International Team member Basil Yates echoed this notion. “I believe,” said Yates, that “it is the sort of place Jesus would have come to if he had come to Toronto. You will remember that Christ dined with publicans and sinners … If you are going to win sinners for Christ, you’ve got to be where sinners are likely to go.”115 The choice of venue was intended to accommodate those who might feel uncomfortable in a church. “What is going to heal this Depression quickest?” Yates asked. “To win to Christ the leaders of this nation who, if transformed by Christ, really could do something about it – or to help men who, however devoted, have no far-reaching influence?”116 If the Depression was to be ended, the wealthy would have to be converted. If the wealthy were to be converted, evangelists would have to engage them in their environment. The tone of the meetings also set the Oxford Group apart from typical evangelistic endeavours. The Groupists were invariably happy, and meetings were frequently marked by laughter. International Team member Jean Hood told an Ottawa audience that “I never thought you could laugh and have fun at a religious meeting … But in the Oxford Group I found people who were getting a real

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kick out of religion.”117 Oxford Group members also radiated an aura of informality that surprised many accustomed to English-speaking Canadian propriety. In Brensham Village, a fictional account of the movement, English author John Moore observed that if Oxford Group members had been contemporaries of Christ, they “would have addressed the Holy Apostles themselves by their Christian names, or rather they would have abbreviated them and called Saint Peter Pete.”118 Not everyone was impressed by this informality, of course. Fundamentalist J. Edwin Orr contrasted the demeanour of Oswald Smith with that of Oxford Group members by noting that Smith was “the possessor of a reserved dignity … There is nothing cheap about him in his human relationships. Oxford Group familiarity would shock him.”119 But Orr and Smith were not among the Oxford Group’s intended targets. Middle- and upper-class Canadians affiliated with the mainstream churches found the light tone of the house parties appealing. The “great adventure” of Christian life so often referred to by International Team members stood in stark contrast to the ennui of life in the 1930s. Others appreciated the honesty that seemed to prevail at these meetings. To some observers in the early twentieth century, remarks Jackson Lears, humanity “seemed to lack any irreducible core of individuality: selfhood consisted only in a series of manipulable social masks.”120 An article printed in the Montreal Witness in 1934 testified to this sense of weightlessness. “The old has gone out from under many,” noted American minister E. Stanley Jones. “Nothing has taken its place – except yearning.”121 The Oxford Group brought a remedy for this malaise. Wealthy Canadians could find a sense of themselves by changing and then living according to the Four Absolutes. Urbanites who longed for the familiarity and comfort of small-town village life could overcome their feelings of atomized weightlessness. “Take off the masks. Be natural, be yourself,” International Team member L.W. Grensted counselled Torontonians.122 Buchman also adjusted his evangelistic language to middle- and upper-class tastes, substituting words such as “change” and “sharing” for more narrowly defined terms like “conversion” and “witnessing.” At “Schools of Life,” Oxford Group converts were counselled to discard the “clumsy,” “old” language that was a barrier to evangelism and to adopt the new. The technical jargon helped distinguish the Oxford Group from fundamentalist evangelists like Oswald J. Smith, who “preached the blood,” using words and phrases that resonated with some, but sounded old-fashioned to others. In addition, by avoiding traditional language and inventing a new vocabulary, Buchman attempted to break down the barriers that had

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separated the Protestant denominations and to blur their doctrinal distinctions. Furthermore, by inventing a new language, he created a new religious community, one that he believed would more effectively bring the message of life change to the world. Commenting on the Group’s language, the Reverend George H. Donald, minister of Montreal’s St. Andrew and St. Paul Anglican Church, observed that “the words are different; the meaning is the same. Not so dignified as the old way, perhaps, but suited to the age.”123 The technical jargon underlined the Group’s novelty, enabling the International Team to appear to be a fresh and new manifestation of the evangelistic spirit, disconnected from the controversies of the past. Buchman’s approach to secular entertainments also reflected the Group’s familiarity with contemporary life. Where Oswald J. Smith denounced activities like theatre attendance and substituted his own in-house entertainment, Buchman was open to twentieth-century diversions like the cinema. The testimony of one International Team member to an Ottawa audience was typical. Upon first joining the Group, she related, she was struck “by the fact that members were able to live out what they advocated and at the same time [were] able to enjoy life more than those with whom she had been associated in the past.”124 The excitement with which English-speaking Canadians expressed the change in their lives was reminiscent of conversions of the past. Yet the faith to which they now subscribed was in tune with the culture of the present. This was the genius of Buchman’s evangelism. Elements of the old and the new resonated in the Oxford Group’s message and method. A former Methodist saw parallels to his own heritage. “There is the same note of personal experience,” he noted in an article in the Witness, “the same contagious happiness, the same consecration, the same whole hearted surrender to the call of God. The Group is very like the Methodist Class Meeting.”125 Buchman combined the old and the new in such a way that Protestants of diverse denominational backgrounds felt familiar with the Oxford Group’s approach to evangelism. This tendency to step back into the past while standing in the present was typical of successful leaders of the revivalist tradition. Evangelists like Buchman knew they had to draw on all of their resources to meet the deeper problems of their age.126 Historian David Bebbington posits that “the key to understanding the Oxford Group is to see that it was an exercise in maximum acculturation.”127 By effortlessly adjusting to the times, Buchman was able to project a mass appeal. What one British critic intended as “a jibe,” notes Bebbington, “was in fact a measure of Buchman’s achievement: ‘the organization of the Groupist movement reflects the distinctive

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character of the age.’”128 The same may be said of English Canada. By packaging traditional concepts in modern forms, Buchman was able to draw English-speaking Canadians who normally would have avoided evangelistic services. As the Reverend J.A. Mowatt put it in a letter to George Pidgeon, the Oxford Group’s campaign was “really a thinly disguised old fashioned revival” that had been “made to appeal to a better class.”129 The informal yet refined atmosphere, observed Samuel Shoemaker, “put back the experience of conversion into the hearts of intellectual people who thought they had done with the word forever.”130 These new converts would then work to bring others into a relationship with Christ. By accommodating his methods to the needs of his audiences, Buchman was able to bring his gospel of personal change to middle- and upper-class listeners. Buchman also furthered his message through careful planning. Observers often remarked that Oxford Group meetings in Canadian cities seemed to occur with little advanced organization. While the Group’s campaigns appeared to be spontaneous, considerable effort was expended to ensure that the meetings proceeded according to plan. Responsible for arranging the campaigns, Buchman was an organizational genius, blessed with remarkable stamina and an incredible memory. Colleagues recalled sleepless nights during which Buchman dictated letters to ministers or hotel managers, referring to their children by name and asking for their help in arranging an Oxford Group visit.131 After learning of the Oxford Group’s arrival in 1932, the Joint Committee for the Evangelization of Canadian Life provided the Group with tangible support. The committee members were respected leaders of the mainstream denominations – the United Church, the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Convention Baptists – who used their prestige to encourage other influential Canadians to support Buchman and his colleagues. Letters were written introducing the work of the Oxford Group to the secretaries of various estimable clubs and organizations, including the Masons, Orange Order, and Odd Fellows, as well as the Kiwanis, Lions, and Canadian Clubs of Canada, and the National Council of Women and Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire. Through their connections in this network of wealthy and established Englishspeaking Canadians, the members of the joint committee helped prepare the way for the International Team.132 Sympathetic clergy frequently organized meetings to elicit the support of their fellow ministers. An advance party of the International

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Team was often there to represent the Group and explain their plans for the visit. In Toronto, ministers received invitations to hand out to parishioners who might benefit from attending an Oxford Group meeting. On the opening Sunday of the International Team’s visits to Canadian cities in 1932–33, Oxford Group members occupied nearly every Anglican, United, Presbyterian, and Convention Baptist pulpit available. By saturating the mainstream churches, the Group ensured that word of their meetings would spread in the days that followed.133 Church presses were also used to galvanize support. The editor of the United Church’s Western Recorder, the Reverend J.P. Hicks, based in Victoria, published sympathetic articles in his journal in August 1932 after reading about the Oxford Group in the British Weekly.134 As a result, the International Team’s visit to the capital of British Columbia was awaited with anticipation. The Team was also aided by Anglican ministers who had become acquainted with the Oxford Group during visits to England or through their denominational publications.135 Anglicans were supportive of the Oxford Group for several reasons. First, Buchman’s message was devoid of the “blood theology” of fundamentalists such as Smith; many Anglicans found Buchman’s antifundamentalist image appealing. Second, the self-conscious elitism of the Group appealed to members of this generally middle- and upperclass denomination. Finally, Anglicans were drawn by the Oxford Group’s ostensibly English roots and predominantly English membership. “Responsiveness to British ideas has always been a characteristic of Canadian Anglicanism,” notes historian John Webster Grant. The connection was pecuniary, as well – British subsidies to Canadian Anglican churches, though declining, would continue until 1940.136 The involvement of Anglican ministers in the Oxford Group campaign elated their colleagues. A United Church correspondent to the New Outlook observed that among ministers organizing the Toronto meetings, the most supportive were “the Anglican clergy … their presence was like a miracle of grace. There they were, sitting beside Baptists, United Churchmen and Presbyterians, seemingly unconscious of any ecclesiastical partitions.”137 The backing of the Anglican Church provided a host of benefits, not the least of which was access to the significant financial resources of the church’s members. Though no details were given about donations to the Group, Canadian Anglicans undoubtedly contributed. Controversy regarding money had a way of dogging evangelistic campaigns, a problem the Oxford Group attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to avoid. At the beginning of each campaign, Buchman explicitly stated that no requests for money would be made by members

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of the International Team. But, he continued, if a member of the audience felt led by the Holy Spirit to give, the gift would be accepted with gratitude. The sources of the Oxford Group’s income are shrouded in mystery. No records were kept of the Group’s finances while in Canada (critics often made note of this), but countless Canadians must have responded. Since 1921, Buchman had worked without a guaranteed income. For inspiration, he had pointed to the practice of the early Christian church, where money was held in common. “If everyone cared enough and everyone shared enough, everyone would have enough,”138 Buchman would often say. The Group’s income came from four main sources: occasional donations, pledges that were honoured on a regular basis, bequests, and the sale of Group literature. In the majority of cases, International Team members relied on the generosity of friends and strangers. Detailed lists of the income of full-time Group workers in Sweden in the early 1940s reveal that, while small gifts were frequently given, large sums were rare. The situation may have been similar in Canada. International Team members often alluded to “miracles” of financial support from persons changed by their witness. A front page article in the Toronto Telegram, for instance, related how a stranger had handed a Team member a roll of bills after receiving instruction from God. When money did not come in, individual Team members paid for themselves. Some of the missionaries occasionally found themselves in difficult financial circumstances, but money was not a concern for wealthier members.139

the response of “the up and outs” The wealth of some of the Team members had a way of attracting the attention of English-speaking Canadians. The sunny smiles of the International Team made for good copy during the darkest days of the Depression, providing welcome relief to newspaper readers tired of endless litanies of economic hardship. Newspaper editors in 1932 and 1933 jumped at the opportunity to carry front-page stories, complete with photographs, of the intelligent, articulate, and often wealthy missionaries. Articles were sprinkled liberally with references to their fashionable attire and verbatim recitations of their stories. An editorial endorsement often followed.140 The efforts of the Oxford Group members ensured that the coverage continued. The International Team was a media-savvy group; when reinforcements landed in Toronto during the 1932–33 campaign, they handed reporters individual biographical press releases.141 In the style of contemporary gossip columnists, they made frequent reference to

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prominent people in public testimonies and in conversations with reporters. Even their name made for good copy: Buchman had enthusiastically adopted the “Oxford Group” title his band of missionaries had acquired in South Africa. A British journalist noted that his initial skepticism about the Group faded when he learned that Buchman’s team was associated with England’s finest university. The prestige associated with the “Oxford” name would have carried even more weight in Canada.142 The press also scooped up the “sound bytes” Buchman frequently delivered for public consumption. Like Oswald J. Smith, Buchman was sensitive to the advertising age and its penchant for summing up messages in slogans. In the same way that “Absolutely pure” came to be associated with Royal Baking Powder and “Press the button; we do the rest,”143 with Kodak, “j-e-s-u-s, Jesus Exactly Suits Us Sinners” and “p-r-a-y, Powerful Radiograms Always Yours” encapsulated Buchman’s message in a manner that caught the attention of journalists and their readers. Buchman and other members of the International Team frequently boasted that the Group did not advertise. They did not pay for newspaper announcements and other methods of advanced publicity because they did not have to. In contrast to Oswald J. Smith, who was generally ignored by the mainstream press, Buchman and his colleagues were media darlings. Interviews with Buchman or articles about Group activities were printed in the days preceding a campaign. The Group saturated mainstream church pulpits on the opening day of their revivals, guaranteeing the attention of the press. Meetings frequently garnered front-page attention, and on the Team members’ off days, articles announced the time and location of future meetings. Editorial endorsements were also common. Like Crossley and Hunter before them, the Oxford Group was a temporary phenomenon, connected to influential members of society, doing the kind of work that newspaper publishers were proud to support. Several reporters temporarily left their beats to write books on the Group, many of which were sold in Canada. Featuring short vignettes related in a breezy journalistic style, these provided the Group with important advanced publicity.144 By not advertising the Group’s services, Buchman distinguished himself further from other evangelists and their crass marketing methods. Oxford Group publicity was typically limited to invitations, printed in script on expensive note cards, inviting ministers or the members of their congregation to a meeting. It was an approach altogether in keeping with the refined image that the Group worked so diligently to project.

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Through these means, the Oxford Group drew and changed Englishspeaking Canadians from Victoria to Halifax. Many of those affected were ordained clergy, a fact often noted by the press. For instance, the Toronto Telegram carried excerpts of a sermon by the Reverend Dr. James Little, of Westminster-Central United Church. Little confessed to his congregation that he had been raised a good Presbyterian but had not experienced conversion until attending an Oxford Group meeting the previous week. He wanted to share that experience and to encourage the members of his church to consider their own hearts. The following day the Telegram carried an article on the Reverend R.A. Armstrong, rector of the Church of the Redeemer and editor of the influential Anglican journal, Canadian Churchman. He too had been “changed” after attending an Oxford Group meeting.145 Letters to George Pidgeon, recognized widely as the evangelists’ chief advocate in Toronto, testified to the Oxford Group’s influence among clergy. The Reverend G.P. McLeod, minister of the Shaughnessy Heights United Church in Vancouver, initiated a correspondence with Pidgeon after the International Team had visited his community. Anglican priests were at the forefront of the Vancouver campaign, he noted, but his own presbytery was divided, with some United Church ministers supporting the Oxford Group and others refusing to participate. He agreed with several of the criticisms levelled against the Group, and recognized that their message and methods were far from perfect. Yet the Oxford Group had made a profound impact on his own life and work. “I owe to them,” he told Pidgeon, “a real deepening of my own religious life in several ways.” This spiritual renewal, he noted, “has distinctly deepened the companionship and fellowship of my home.”146 The Oxford Group had also transformed the lives of many in his congregation: formerly listless members were now organizing indigenous groups and carrying the message of life change beyond the walls of the church. Some in his congregation did not want to become directly involved in these subgroups, but among these were many “who are genuinely interested and stirred and quite prepared to enter into a more thorough spiritual discipline of their personal lives.” The interest was shared by all ages, but “in most congregations,” he observed, “the young people have been most deeply affected.”147 McLeod made no mention of an influx of new members, and church records reflect this omission. Shaughnessy Heights did not experience an extraordinary growth in membership in the year following the Oxford Group’s visit – those most influenced by the evangelists were already connected to the church.148 This was the case at other churches as well. A reporter in Toronto noted that when a

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Groupist asked members of the audience if they were churchgoers, a majority raised their hands.149 Letters to the Montreal Witness revealed that these people had spent their lives in their denomination, had undergone the various rites of passage, including baptism and confirmation, but had felt that something was missing. Only after the visit of the Oxford Group had these churchgoers, by their own account, met God in a personal way.150 Church records give a similar impression. At George Pidgeon’s Bloor Street United Church, overall membership increases were marginal or non-existent during the early 1930s. In contrast, there was a significant increase in those who entered the church by profession of faith. At Toronto’s Westminster Central United Church, where Oxford Group convert James Little was minister, the numbers were similar.151 The increases in church membership and new members by profession of faith appear more substantial when placed in the perspective of the entire United Church of Canada. Across the country, the church grew by only 1 per cent in 1932, 1 per cent in 1933 and .2 per cent in 1934.152 The number of members by profession of faith actually decreased by 1 per cent in 1932, 4 per cent in 1933 and 10 per cent in 1934.153 Growth at Bloor Street United and Westminster Central, both of which were led by Oxford Group supporters, was not substantial. Yet both churches bucked a declining trend in the United Church. Records for Anglican churches in Toronto through the early 1930s are less comprehensive, and give a decidedly mixed picture. Anglican priests R.A. Armstrong (at the Church of the Redeemer), Barnett (at St. Clement’s Riverdale), F.C. Ward-White (at St. Alban’s Cathedral), and H.F.D. Woodcock (at Christ Church) were avid supporters of the Group. At Armstrong’s Church of the Redeemer, Sunday morning attendance increased after the visit of the Oxford Group, but only briefly. At Barnett’s St. Clement’s Riverdale, Sunday morning attendance increased substantially, but this occurred a full year after the Oxford Group had visited Toronto. The church led by Ward-White, St. Alban’s Cathedral, experienced a substantial decline in both communicants and attendance after the International Team’s visit. At Woodcock’s Christ Church, the number of communicants increased briefly, while Sunday morning attendance held steady, rising a full year after the Oxford Group’s sojourn in Toronto.154 These numbers must be placed in the perspective of the totals for the Anglican Church in Toronto. From 1932 to 1933 the number of communicants in Toronto apparently increased by an astonishing 30 per cent, then declined by 9 per cent in 1934. Attendance at the Sunday morning services of the Anglican churches rose 7 per cent in 1933, but declined by 1 per cent in 1934. If these statistics are to be

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trusted, Anglican churches in Toronto grew substantially in the year that followed the Oxford Group’s first visit, but this growth did not occur at churches led by Oxford Group sympathizers. Perhaps the attention given to Group endeavours by the likes of the Reverend R.A. Armstrong drove people out of his church. The departing Anglicans may have enjoyed the continuity provided by the denomination’s long tradition, manifested each Sunday morning in the liturgy. Through this history and practice Anglicans had created for themselves an identity that distinguished them from other churches and the surrounding world. The Oxford Group may have appeared to these Anglicans to be “outsiders” who disrupted the tradition that they held dear. Priests such as the Reverend Armstrong might have lead the church down the Oxford Group road, but that did not mean that everyone in the congregation followed. Anglican opinion on the Oxford Group was obviously divided.155 Converts seemed to be composed equally of men and women, and the methods and the message of the Group were targeted to both. The preoccupation with masculine Christianity that had marked the revivals of Crossley and Hunter was evident, though to a lesser degree, in the Oxford Group. An emphasis on masculine religion was not out of place in mainstream churches. Contemporary liberal Protestant leaders in the United States rejected the feminized Christ of the Victorian Age and instead emphasized a Jesus who was “robust, muscular and active.” Influential social gospel ministers like Walter Rauschenbusch insisted that “there was nothing mushy, nothing sweetly effeminate about Jesus.” Instead, said Rauschenbusch, Jesus was a “man’s man,” who “turned again and again on the snarling pack of His pious enemies and made them slink away.”156 A similar message was popularized by Bruce Barton, advertising executive and best-selling author. In The Man Nobody Knows, Barton portrayed Christ as an outdoorsman who worked with his hands at manual tasks and enjoyed spending time with other men. Barton added a new element to the contemporary view of Christ, however, by making an explicit connection to the commercial world. Jesus, according to Barton, was “the founder of modern business”; he had “picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world.”157 Similarly, Buchman’s gospel was “robust,” “active,” and resonant with the self-image of early twentieth-century men of affairs. The evangelist’s goal was the conversion of the “best and brightest” of Western civilization, for the sake of the evangelization of the world “in this generation.” In the early decades of the twentieth century, political and social leaders were generally male, and politics was

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thought to be a “man’s game.” The “manliness” of the Oxford Group’s message appealed to many of English Canada’s leading lights, the very people Buchman hoped to convert. And the Group’s independence from what some considered a feminized church helped as well; men could attend their meetings without feeling they had to surrender their masculinity. They were not asked to humble themselves by standing up or walking to the front to indicate their desire for conversion. Life changes occurred in the privacy of a one-on-one conversation after the meeting. For these reasons the editor of the Regina Leader-Post applauded Buchman’s muscular Christianity. The Group’s message, he noted, “is not … something unduly sentimental, appealing only to the namby-pambys in life. It is something for strong men, big men.”158 At the same time, however, Buchman attempted to draw in women. In this way he was similar to Crossley and Hunter, who paraded their masculinity in the hope of drawing men to the gospel, while making specific appeals to women. When the Oxford Group landed on Canada’s shores in 1932, close to half of the International Team members were women. Crossley and Hunter, and later evangelists like Oswald J. Smith, were reluctant to share their platform with women. But in Oxford Group meetings, female Team members regularly spoke and testified that no distinction existed within the International Team – all members were treated as equals. Following the standard evangelistic practice of holding services for specific groups, some of the Oxford Group meetings were for women only.159 These meetings reflected societal norms by focusing on the ways in which the Four Absolutes could strengthen family life. Team member Janet Binns, of London, England, observed that the question “Should women work?” was being answered on a daily basis by the Oxford Group. In a message that meshed neatly with middle-class opinion, she noted that women were doing the work of life-changing, fulfilling their roles as nurturers and bringing about the salvation of their brothers, husbands, and children. This message may not have been progressive but it was popular. In a letter to George Pidgeon, Winnipeg United Church minister J.W. Clarke noted that, among the young people converted by the Oxford Group, “the female element is in the majority.”160 While Buchman endeavoured to appeal to both men and women, he was more specific in his efforts to reach the upper class. As noted above, Buchman sought to convert influential leaders in the hope of evangelizing the world in a generation. Among the members of the International Team were a baroness and vice-admiral, and active supporters of the Oxford Group included influential industrialists like

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Henry Ford. Buchman’s self-conscious appeal to the elites also proved successful in English Canada. As noted above, Prime Minister Bennett and his cabinet met with the International Team on several occasions, as did the leader of the opposition, Mackenzie King. Premiers, lieutenant-governors, and mayors sat beside the members of the International Team at meetings and officially welcomed them to their cities. The attendance at Oxford Group meetings of these members of elite society led to the participation of other upper-class Englishspeaking Canadians. In Toronto, members of the International Team dined with influential banker Joseph Flavelle and the president of the British-American Oil Company, A.L. Ellsworth.161 According to one account, in Toronto the Oxford Group drew “a considerable number of business, professional, and social leaders whose church connection has been somewhat nominal.”162 None of these men were against religion or the church; rather, their primary focus was business. What the Oxford Group attempted was the conversion of these nominal churchgoers into active Christians who would draw on their power to help bring about the Kingdom of God on earth. As a result of Buchman’s self-conscious efforts to convert the rich and famous, the Oxford Group was variously dubbed the “Salvation Army of the upper classes,”163 “The Genteel Evangelists,” and “The Parlour Apostles.”164 Buchman used this image as leverage to further his goals. In response to a request from the Oxford Group, the Canadian Pacific Railway published a pamphlet promoting “special rates” to “House Party” destinations, and arranged a “special train” to the Chateau Frontenac gathering. Reduced prices were also negotiated at the hotels used by the Oxford Group for major house parties, and the Group reciprocated by encouraging participants to patronize the hotel services.165 Even with reduced rates, only those of considerable means could afford to travel by train to one of the nation’s most posh hotels. More accessible to middle-class men and women were the regular house parties. In Winnipeg, for instance, the Reverend J.W. Clarke reported to Pidgeon that “the meetings were attended largely by the middle class.”166 After the International Team had left a city and indigenous groups were formed, the appeal of the Group was extended further. A Mr. Harris wrote to Pidgeon, observing that “a year ago the International Team came heralded as appealing to the ‘up-and-outs’ and were publicly applauded by our leading citizens. So far as I can see, the work since then is almost entirely among people who would have been reached in old days by any kind of evangelist.”167 While the first wave of meetings had been targeted to Canada’s most influential

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citizens, the legacy of the Oxford Group in Canada resonated most among English-speaking Canadians of middling means. While the Oxford Group’s message was effective among what Clarke called “the middle class,” it was less successful among English Canada’s industrial workers. Though workers were not the International Team’s primary focus, efforts were made to reach them, and Oxford Group member Jimmie Watts was often drafted to speak to workers on their own terms. According to the Ottawa Citizen, Watts had been “a miner at 14 … a leader of the communist party of Great Britain, who organised the great strike in Scotland in 1926, and who has twice been confined to jail as a result of his zealousness in the cause of the working man.”168 He was the darling of newspaper reporters – his testimony dominated articles on the Group’s meetings in newspapers across the country. His message pleased the business and political classes as well: in the nation’s capital, to an audience consisting of Canada’s political leaders, he testified that it was “his belief that the barriers of race, creed and class are rapidly diminishing in the world today, due to the influence of the spread of Christianity.”169 Watts had come to the realization that his communist theories were wrong-headed: world revolution could not be achieved through workers uniting and seizing the means of production – societal change could come only through personal transformation. “What Mr. Watts had hoped to do through class war in the days of the general strike,” the Montreal Witness reported, “he now hopes to accomplish through the technique of a spiritual revolution.”170 Hearing a former union leader talk about replacing class warfare with Christianity was obviously reassuring to middle- and upper-class audiences. Watts’s conviction that personal change was the solution to the Depression resonated with some English-speaking Canadians. At a loss to explain the economic chaos, they seized on human greed. Like Frank Buchman and the International Team members, these women and men viewed sin only in the personal sense – as something that one individual did to another. It was left to others to argue that the capitalist system was the problem. In contrast to the upper and middle classes, industrial workers were unconvinced by the Oxford Group’s economic analysis, as Watts and several of his colleagues found out. Showing characteristic boldness, the Groupists attended a meeting of the Labour Forum at the Toronto Labour Temple. According to a front-page article in the Toronto Globe, Watts’s testimony deteriorated into a shouting match as workers in the audience derided “the imputed hidden capitalistic motives behind their mission.” When Watts informed them that the

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unemployed would find success only after a personal life change, an enraged worker denounced the message as “silly, rotten, childishness,” and condemned the church “as an instrument of oppression.”171 The Oxford Group’s simple panacea for the Depression infuriated the members of the Labour Forum: the International Team’s message sounded like a justification of the status quo, an excuse to do nothing to relieve the plight of Toronto’s unemployed workers. What was needed, in their opinion, was not personal change but economic reconstruction – the problem lay with the capitalist system itself. But like many evangelists, Buchman knew little, and cared less, about economics. The solution to the world’s problems, as far as he was concerned, lay in the conversion of individual men and women. The conflict was but one of several in Toronto; the Oxford Group obviously touched a nerve in Canada’s largest city. Many of the critics were clergy. On one side were fundamentalists, among whom T.T. Shields took the lead. In a sermon preached in his Jarvis Street Baptist Church in January 1933, and subsequently published in a pamphlet titled The Oxford Group Movement Analyzed, Shields acknowledged that some aspects of the Group’s ministry were commendable. Yet others, he continued, were not consistent with his literal reading of the Bible. What bothered him most was the manner in which Oxford Group members had adjusted their message to contemporary culture. Shields decried their apparent disregard for the Bible and the lack of “blood theology” (which underscored that sinners were redeemed through Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross) in their message of life change. Their understanding of sin was inadequate, and their practices of sharing and guidance clearly violated biblical teaching on confession, witness, and prayer.172 Oswald J. Smith was more concerned with Buchman’s attempt to use “individual life changes” to bring about world-wide renewal. As Smith saw it, the mission of the Church was not the “Christianization” of the world, but its evangelization. There was little point, said Smith, in attempting to instill Christian values into a hopelessly sinful society. Buchman’s goal of bringing about “‘A Christ-controlled Nation and a Christ-controlled World’ … is absolutely contrary to the Word of God. That is not the mission of the Church nor the aim of the Gospel.”173 Critics on the liberal side were led by W.B. Creighton, the influential editor of the United Church’s New Outlook. Creighton’s antipathy to mass evangelism and his rejection of the conversion experience were well known within the United Church. Since 1906, the year he had taken over as editor of the Methodist Christian Guardian (which was

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reborn as the New Outlook in 1925), he had urged churches to abandon revivalism and instead become centres of social reconstruction. In the early stages of the 1932–33 Canadian campaign, the New Outlook carried several sympathetic stories of the Group’s work in Montreal and Ottawa. But when the International Team landed in Toronto, and Creighton witnessed the Group first-hand, the tide of the New Outlook’s coverage turned.174 Creighton was also bothered by their candid discussions of sin. He weighed in with these impressions in an editorial, calling the International Team members’ testimonies during the opening meeting the “most unblushing piece of exhibitionism we had ever seen.” But it got worse, he continued. A subsequent meeting for ministers, where Buchman warned against the sin of “sexual indulgence,” would “abide as one of the hideous memories of a lifetime.”175 Several articles critical of the Group were published in the weeks that followed, until Creighton closed the New Outlook to further discussion of the Group’s evangelistic endeavours. In an attempt to make Creighton reverse his decision, George Pidgeon issued a “Protest” co-signed by six other United Church ministers, which was published in the New Outlook. But the editor would not budge.176 Creighton’s stand on the Oxford Group does not seem to have been representative of the United Church – George Pidgeon received numerous letters from those frustrated by Creighton’s position. The Reverend Albert Jones, for instance, told Pidgeon that Creighton’s “extreme Modernism and disbelief in the Bible, the Deity of Christ and the necessity of conversion is the trouble.”177 Creighton’s subsequent relationship with the United Church also indicates that he was not speaking for the denomination when it came to the Oxford Group. As a result of the Oxford Group imbroglio, Creighton severed his connection with both the denomination and his home church of twenty years, Howard Park United. Years later, his son Donald Creighton observed that, “so far as I know, he never again became a regular attender at a United Church.”178

the 1934 campaign Despite the criticisms of contemporaries like Creighton and Shields, the International Team members saw their first Canadian tour as a success. No sooner had they left in May 1933 than plans were made for a return visit in 1934. The prospects looked good: thousands of English-speaking Canadians had attended Oxford Group meetings in 1932–33, many were practicing their faith along Group lines, and ministers were in place to organize the next campaign.

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The International Team returned to Toronto in March 1934 and was greeted by a capacity crowd in both Massey Hall and the Crystal Ballroom of the King Edward Hotel. Ottawa was their next stop. They enjoyed a private luncheon at the Chateau Laurier with the prime minister, who attended a service at Chalmer’s United Church, and they met with the leader of the opposition, Mackenzie King. After a house party at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, attended by one thousand people, the Team divided. One group travelled to Boston, Halifax, St. John, and Fredericton while the other ventured west to Niagara Falls, then Toronto. The Team reunited in Montreal, and headed north to Fort William/Port Arthur, then west through Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria. After a large house party at the Banff Springs Hotel in June, with a thousand in attendance, the team travelled east through Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and left Canada from Quebec City. In his farewell message delivered in Ottawa, Prime Minister Bennett told the Group that “the work you are doing has made the task of government easier. Your influence has been felt in every village and city, even in the remotest outpost of the Dominion.”179 That may have been true; however, the response of English-speaking Canadians in 1934 was not what the International Team had hoped for. The crowds that greeted their second tour were, with a few exceptions, smaller. Whereas Anglican, United, Presbyterian, Baptist, and, occasionally, Salvation Army churches had opened their pulpits to Oxford Group team members in 1932–33, only United and occasionally Anglican churches hosted meetings in 1934. Newspapers covered the meetings, but articles that would have graced the front page in 1932–33 were now buried in the middle. Even the Group’s critics seemed to have lost interest.180 The Oxford Group’s new emphasis was partly to blame. As soon as the first speaker began “sharing” at the opening meeting of the 1934 campaign, the audience recognized a change. In 1932–33, the Oxford Group message had focused on life changing. References had been made to transforming the world, but life changing had been encouraged as an end in itself. In 1934, by contrast, “world changing” was the ultimate goal and conversion was just a means to this end. The message was essentially the same, but the application of that message had been modified. The masthead of the Montreal Witness signalled the shift. In April 1934, the “Oxford Group Life-Changing Supplement” became the “Oxford Group Weekly Supplement; For a New Social Order – Under God’s Guidance; Achieved through Individual Life Changing on a Colossal Scale.”181 The International Team made the distinction clear. A reporter covering the opening meeting

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for the Toronto Globe noted that “reference was made to the former visit of the International Team to Toronto in December, 1932, which sounded the message of ‘personal release’ while the return visit emphasized national and international spiritual reconstruction.” Those who were dwelling on the former message, commented International Team member Basil Yates, were “a year out of date.”182 The agenda was ambitious, to say the least. According to the Globe reporter, the International Team members envisioned “the power of the living God dominating a world-wide spiritual reconstruction in business and industrial life, in the economic situation, in the preventing of the outbreak of another war, in the settling of international problems, in the solution of agricultural and unemployment problems.”183 The onus was on the United States, Britain, and its former colonies to turn the tide against the forces of chaos. The only hope, declared Buchman, was that “English-speaking countries might lead the way to harmonious world conditions by submitting to capture by real Christianity.”184 A Manifesto issued by the Group sounded the alarm. “We are now fighting a greater War than any since the World began. It is not nation against nation, but Chaos against God … Already the Moral Offensive Has Begun … You cannot remain a neutral. God and His enemies alike demand your honest decision.”185 The shift in the Oxford Group’s message from personal change to national and international change was a response to events in Germany. Born and raised in a German-speaking family, school, and town, Buchman had always had a close affinity for his ancestral home. Beginning in 1920, he had spent part of each year in Germany. Weeks before his first Canadian campaign, he had attempted unsuccessfully to meet with Hitler. While the International Team was leading meetings through western Canada in 1933, Germany was experiencing profound political changes. In early 1933, Chancellor Hitler dissolved Germany’s parliament, the Reichstag. In 1934 Germany became a one-party dictatorship.186 Buchman travelled directly from Canada to Germany in June 1933, again in the hope of gaining an audience with Hitler. When that failed, he began to organize campaigns in other countries, like Holland and Switzerland, which he hoped would spill over the border and into Germany. He also refashioned the emphasis of the Oxford Group to meet the new situation.187 Buchman admired Hitler’s ability to impose order on the chaos that had plagued Germany in the years following World War I. At the same time, he realized that the total claim of Nazism left no room for the Christianization of the world.188 How could Nazism be overcome? Buchman began to imitate Hitler’s rhetoric for his own evangelistic purposes. Martial language was ubiquitous during the 1934

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Canadian campaign; Buchman told an audience in Ottawa, for instance, that there was “an instant need for men and women to accept the dictatorship of the Living Spirit of God and mobilize into an army for changing the world.”189 References were frequently made to “Totalitarianism,” which was shortened to the “T Plan” and explained as “God control in every department of modern civilization with all its reactions on the family, in our salient, and on the international front.”190 The new emphasis on world changing resonated with politicians, newspaper editors, and mainstream church leaders, who had earlier expressed concern about the Group’s lack of interest in social issues. According to the editor of the Canadian Churchman, “In general, it was felt the message of the Group … had gained in strength and sanity as compared with a year ago. There was a markedly wider outreach into social, national, international life.”191 With his eye on the moribund Canadian economy, the editor of the Ottawa Citizen approvingly quoted International Team member Victor Kitchen, who had remarked that “only God can make national reconstruction and new purchasing power which people demand.”192 At the grassroots, however, the new message was received with ambivalence. Audiences during the 1934 campaign were consistently smaller than they had been during the previous tour. Only in Saint John and Fredericton did the excitement compare to the 1932–33 campaign. In Saint John, 3,500 attended three concurrent International Team meetings, and in Fredericton, nearly one-third of the city attended a meeting. There were two related reasons for the overwhelming interest in the Group in these centres. First, neither city had been visited during the 1932–33 tour; the Oxford Group was new to them. Second, because St. John and Fredericton had not witnessed the Group before, the International Team altered its message so that life changing (and not world changing) was the emphasis. This was the message that English-speaking Canadians wanted to hear.193 Canadians in cities like Toronto and Winnipeg may have been bored with the Group in 1934 – they had seen it all before. But the new message was also to blame; world changing did not move listeners in the way that life changing had stirred thousands only months before. English-speaking Canadians were still interested in the former message, as the pages of the Montreal Witness attested. In fact, the juxtaposition of reports from the indigenous groups and the accounts of the International Team was striking. The 4 April 1934 edition of the Witness carried several articles about the International Team’s meetings in central Canada, where they championed international change. The same page also carried an article from Vancouver,

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where an indigenous group was rejoicing over several conversions. While these English-speaking Canadians spoke of repentance, conversion, and regeneration, Buchman and his Team trumpeted worldwide regeneration.194

conclusion In smaller centres throughout English Canada, talk of personal change endured in the years that followed. A Witness report of a campaign in the village of Preeceville, Saskatchewan in 1936 was typical: “During the two days that the [indigenous] group had been in town, the beer parlour had closed, and the fellowship had commandeered the chairs … Two meetings for witnessing in this town brought a truck lot of ‘changed lives’ … some of them, the young men about town who were the terror of the community.”195 The comments were reminiscent of the revivals of Crossley and Hunter a generation earlier. So was the message. The men and women of Preeceville rallied behind evangelistic meetings where personal Christianity was the central focus. This was in keeping with Buchman’s primary purpose in 1932–33: to bring people to Christ. Like Oswald J. Smith and Crossley and Hunter, the evangelist and his Oxford Group had devoted all of their energy to bringing others to conversion. While Buchman’s emphasis on life change was similar to that of Crossley and Hunter and Smith, his methods were altogether different. Crossley, Hunter, and Smith had unabashedly appropriated forms of popular commercial culture for their religious purposes. Buchman believed that this approach had turned middle- and upperclass English-speaking Canadians – his target audience – away from religion. So he appropriated forms of elite commercial culture instead. For this reason his low-key meetings eschewed hymns and prayers and were held in the ballrooms of Canada’s finest hotels, a venue that put his potential converts at ease. He drew on a network of established and influential clergy to plan his campaigns and held the attention of the press with famous personalities, slogans, and an upbeat image. This approach proved remarkably successful in 1932– 33, especially among middle- and upper-class audiences. These mainstream Protestants were exceptionally open to revivalism through the early 1930s. But the world was changing, and Buchman decided to change with it. During his second tour of Canada, Buchman emphasized world revolution. He continued to present the essential message of conversion, but in an increasingly politicized package. In his efforts to oust secular despots, Buchman imitated them. His house parties were

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replaced by “camps” and “national assemblies.” Flags were prominent at the Oxford Group’s 1936 National Assembly in Europe, where, according to a report, “bugles were sounded and drums beaten as 1,000 young men marched to the front followed by a contingent of girls.”196 The shift to politics was manifested further in May 1938, when Buchman changed the name of his organization to “Moral Rearmament,” or “mra.” His timing was impeccable: World War II broke out sixteen months later.197 Buchman was not alone in employing martial flourishes to promote his message of change. In Toronto, revivalist Charles Templeton organized Youth for Christ meetings that featured marches, flags, and a choir clothed in black and white forming a V for victory. All of this for the sake of furthering his evangelical message of conversion, a message that was both similar to and different from that of Buchman.

4 “In tune with the times” Charles Templeton and Post-World War II Revivalism

A reporter for the Montreal Standard described the scene: it was seven o’clock on a Saturday evening in the spring of 1946, and Toronto’s Massey Hall was packed. “Outside on the street, hundreds of frantic bobby-soxers pushed and scrambled and pounded on the big wooden doors.” The burly policeman standing nearby shook his head: “No more room inside. Now run along home … I tell you there’s not an empty seat left in the place.” The “bobby-soxers” let him finish, then continued their pounding. “We want in!” they chanted. “We want in!” “What goes on?” the reporter quizzed a blonde fan nearby. “Frank Sinatra? Oscar Peterson?” “Don’t be silly,” she replied. “It’s Youth for Christ.”1 While Youth for Christ appeared to some to be little more than an entertainment spectacle, the primary purpose of the meetings was evangelistic. Toronto pastor and evangelist Charles Templeton organized and led the rallies to spread a message of conversion to Jesus Christ. To this end his meetings centred on what one reporter called “old-fashioned repent-and-be-saved gospel preaching.”2 Drawing on evangelical Protestantism, Templeton urged young people to confess their sins, accept Christ as their Saviour, and, with the Holy Spirit’s help, live a life pleasing to God. While Templeton’s message appeared to be “old-fashioned,” his methods were decidedly modern. In order to draw young people to his sermons, he employed the latest in Hollywood-style entertainment. Breathless advertisements invited young men and women to Massey Hall and Maple Leaf Gardens. Sporting flashy bow ties and

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glow-in-the-dark socks and speaking the jive idiom popular in the 1940s, the evangelist hosted a show that featured jugglers, acrobats, and radio-style interviews with members of the audience. Music was a central attraction, performed by various bands, a choir that sometimes numbered two thousand, a female octet, and Templeton’s wife, an award-winning singer. It is little wonder that the Montreal Standard reporter confused the Youth for Christ rally with a pop concert. From 1944 to 1948, thousands attended Templeton’s rallies, and many professed a conversion. The evangelist, however, began to question the message he so convincingly communicated. Grave doubts about the central tenets of his old-fashioned gospel led him to leave fundamentalist evangelism for liberal mainstream Protestantism, and in 1951 Templeton became the “Official Evangelist” of the National Council of Churches in the United States and the United Church of Canada. In the 1950s, as in the previous decade, his message as well as his methods were, as his campaign advertisements attested, “in tune with our times.” This time, however, the old-fashioned gospel was replaced by a Christianity that drew on contemporary intellectual insights to reinterpret evangelical doctrines. Templeton’s openness to the latest in scientific and philosophical learning led him to preach a gospel that incorporated contemporary intellectual thought. Templeton’s audience had grown up, and his new message appealed to adult English-speaking Canadians who saw no conflict between their faith and modern intellectual life. From 1950 to 1955, thousands responded to this up-to-date version of the gospel. During his career of twenty years, which ended in 1957 when he left the ministry altogether, the manner in which Templeton marketed the gospel changed significantly. What did not change was Templeton’s self-conscious appropriation of various contemporary cultural forms to draw Englishspeaking Canadians into the Christian faith.3

“geared to the times, but anchored to the rock!” templeton and youth for christ, 1944–1948 The Evangelist: Charles Templeton, 1944–1948 Charles Templeton was born in Toronto on 7 October 1915, the second of five children. He grew up in Regina, where his father worked as a department store manager, and then Toronto, where his father took another position. After repeated marital infidelities, Templeton’s father

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left his wife and family in 1929. In the dark days of the Depression, the Templetons struggled to make ends meet, hiding in panic when bill collectors knocked on the front door.4 Templeton, according to his own testimony, majored in athletics during his two years of high school. But his accomplishments on the football field were not matched in the classroom and, after his second attempt at grade 10, he dropped out. In addition to his penchant for sports, he was also a gifted artist. Upon leaving school, he decided to use his passion for drawing to help support his family. With a confidence remarkable for someone his age, he took several of his sketches of athletic celebrities to the sports editor of the Toronto Globe and won a job drawing a daily cartoon. Templeton’s work was soon syndicated in newspapers across the country, putting him on a firstname basis with Canada’s premier athletes. It was an exciting and rewarding life for a teenager. He spent his days with the hard-drinking writers in the smoky back room of the Globe sports department and his evenings with his girlfriend. She was only two years older, he recalled later, but “much more sophisticated.”5 Then, in 1936, Templeton “got religion,” and everything changed. His mother had joined Toronto’s Parkdale Church of the Nazarene and encouraged her children to accompany her. The others acquiesced, but Charles had little interest in attending church. Finally, lured by the news that the Cleveland Colored Quartet would be providing special music, he attended the service. Later that evening, while lying in bed, he was overcome by feelings of guilt. Weeping, he began to pray, “Lord, come down. Come down. Come down.” Then, he later recalled, In a moment, a weight began to lift, a weight as heavy as I. It passed through my thighs, my belly, my chest, my arms, my shoulders and lifted off entirely. I could have leaped over a wall. An ineffable warmth began to suffuse every corpuscle. It seemed that a light had turned on in my chest and its refining fire had cleansed me. I hardly dared breathe, fearing that I might end or alter the moment. I heard myself whispering over and over, “Thank you Lord. Thank you. Thank you.”6

He immediately woke his mother, and they talked at length. At dawn, he crawled into bed and “began to laugh softly, out of an indescribable sense of well being at the centre of an exultant, all-encompassing joy.”7 Charles Templeton had been “born again” – he had met Christ in a personal way. “Jesus was so real to me,” he recalled later. “Nothing was more real.”8 This emotional experience determined the next twenty years of his life. He had met God face to face, and from this

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moment on he would devote himself to bringing about the same event in the lives of others. One of his first acts as a new Christian was to quit his work with the Globe, giving up a steady paycheque, the acquaintance of sports celebrities, and the recognition that had resulted from the national syndication of his work. God was calling him to other things, and he was determined to follow. His first stop was his mother’s church, and in 1936 he joined the humble community at Parkdale Church of the Nazarene. The church’s theology and style influenced Templeton’s message and methods for the first half of his career. The denomination was one of many independent conservative Protestant movements that had emerged out of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Nazarenes had much in common with Pentecostals: both groups had grown out of the National Camp Meetings begun by Methodists in the 1860s for the promotion of holiness. Both had been convinced that the acceptance of historical criticism and Darwinian science had rendered the mainstream churches spiritually dead. Both had promoted biblical infallibility, premillennialism, strict morality, and sanctification as a “second work of grace” that followed conversion. Yet Nazarenes had vehemently disagreed with the Pentecostal emphasis on speaking in tongues as a sign of sanctification. As a result, the branch of the Nazarenes that Templeton joined had formed its own denomination in 1914. By the early 1940s the church claimed a membership of 200,000 in Canada, the United States, and Britain.9 Templeton was fascinated by the evangelists who preached sin and salvation from the Parkdale pulpit. He studied their techniques and practised at home before a mirror. From his bedroom he graduated to street corners, he recalled, which “led to my speaking to young people which led to being invited into pulpits which led to better pulpits each time. The Nazarene Church was loose at that time, they liked guest preachers, and I soon got a reputation.”10 Templeton’s standing within the Nazarene church was built partly on his unique presentation of the gospel message. In order to attract attention to his message of conversion, the entrepreneurial evangelist drew on his skills as an artist, presenting “chalk talks” – sermons illustrated with chalk and pencil. After hearing Templeton preach at a youth conference attended by delegates from both the United States and Canada, several American churches invited him to bring his presentation to the us. Beginning in 1938, he sketched his way through forty-four states, evangelizing in churches, halls, tents, and the open air. His preaching matured south of the border, not in his native land.11

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While leading a revival campaign in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1939, he met Constanci (Connie) Orozco, the soloist for the meetings. Born in California of Mexican parents, she had studied opera and had won the ‘California Hour’ vocal contest in 1935. Metro-GoldwynMayer had offered her a scholarship in preparation for a movie career, but she had left the studio for the revival circuit after being converted at a Nazarene service. Described by an excited reporter as a “volatile and vibrant personality whose speech bubbles out in happy volubility,”12 she was an instant hit with evangelistic audiences. In Grand Rapids, she struck up a friendship with Charles. He proposed ten days after they met and they married two months later. The partnership lasted until Templeton left the ministry.13 The young couple eventually settled in Toronto in 1941, intent on forming their own church. The vacant St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church on Avenue Road caught their attention. Templeton emptied his bank account to pay the rent for the first three months, took out advertisements announcing “Toronto’s New Centre of Evangelism,” and held the first service in October. One hundred twenty-six people sat in the cavernous sanctuary on the opening Sunday, but in a few short months the building was full. In 1944 an extra gallery was built to seat the overflow crowds. When an arsonist gutted the church that year, Templeton’s congregation restored it within months.14 Many in the audience were young people, and a considerable number were soldiers. Templeton had tried to enlist, but had been told that he would be most effective if he continued with his work in Toronto.15 Although the war was on his and everyone else’s mind, he gave it little attention in his sermons. The young men and women sitting before him every Sunday needed to talk about something else. According to Templeton, three out of four of his regular attenders were under the age of thirty-five. Total attendance for a Sunday, according to a reporter for Maclean’s, was five thousand. When Templeton left Toronto in 1948, the Globe and Mail referred to Templeton’s church as “one of the largest congregations in the Dominion.”16 They came for Templeton’s upbeat presentation of the basic evangelical gospel. Like Oswald J. Smith’s Peoples Church, just a few blocks away, Templeton’s Avenue Road Church of the Nazarene was a “Gospel Tabernacle,” organized by a charismatic and independently minded leader who used catchy melodies, clubs, programs, and radio to draw crowds to his old-fashioned gospel. “Worldlywise” after years in a newspaper sports department, Templeton adapted the techniques of merchants of “secular” culture to his religious purposes. The entrepreneurial spirit that had won him a job at

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the Globe now found ways to attract people to Christianity. Frank Sinatra’s bow ties were the talk of teen magazine columnists in the 1940s, and Templeton adopted a similar look. Sporting bright bow ties and flashy jackets, the handsome evangelist made church fun.17 Templeton’s considerable success was also the result of his cooperation with those who shared an interest in the evangelism of young people. In July 1945 Templeton became a founding member of Youth for Christ International (yfc), the brainchild of Chicago minister Torrey Johnson. The organization brought together clergy and evangelists from across the continent, providing them with an opportunity to make contacts and share strategies. The leadership of Youth for Christ soon resembled a Who’s Who of post-war fundamentalism, including Americans Charles Fuller and Billy Graham, and Canadians Oswald J. Smith and Templeton.18 Fuller and Smith, who had risen to prominence in the 1920s, provided a sense of tradition. Johnson and Templeton, who rose to fame in the 1940s, brought a spirit of enthusiasm. The latter also contributed considerable organizational abilities. Just months after he attended his first Youth for Christ meeting in Chicago in 1944, Templeton became chair of the Budget and Planning Committee and regional vice-president for Eastern Canada. The Canada – us border was all but ignored at Youth for Christ: the state of New York was included in Templeton’s jurisdiction.19 As the 1945 Winona Lake Conference came to a close, Templeton was singled out for his outstanding contribution.20 By the following year, he had been appointed to the executive committee post of “Promotional Director,” and was conducting “Leadership Training Schools” on “Publicity.” Among these marketers of religion, he was a stand-out.21 He was also leading some of the largest Youth for Christ gatherings in North America. These meetings served to complement his regular church work. Sundays were dedicated to his Avenue Road congregation and Saturday nights to Toronto’s youth. The people at his Avenue Road church did not resent Templeton’s new endeavours with Youth for Christ; instead, they rallied behind him. With their support, Templeton had begun in 1944 to organize meetings that soon drew 2,800 young people to Massey Hall on Saturday evenings. A reporter for the Toronto Star noted that the rallies were “said to be among the largest gospel gatherings in the world.”22 Advertised as “a pulsing program slanted for youth,”23 the services combined wholesome entertainment, patriotism, and evangelism. Critics dismissed them as “a mixture of old-fashioned revival methods and amateur night entertainment,” but the crowds were enchanted. It was “fundamentalism in a new dress,” Templeton told a reporter, “a

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distinctively new approach to religion.”24 Templeton’s flashy evangelism, emphasizing a conversion like the one that had changed his life, drew overflow crowds for four years. The days of mass evangelism had returned, or so it seemed to many in Toronto. Templeton also preached to crowds in Europe. Buoyed by the success of yfc in Canada and the us, Torrey Johnson decided to take the show overseas and, in 1946, organized what he called a Youth for Christ “European Invasion.” Templeton, Billy Graham, and baritone soloist Stratton Shufelt were drafted on what Johnson declared to be “the initial step in a program to evangelize the world.” It was a crucial moment in the world’s history, Johnson told a reporter for the Chicago Herald-American. “As go the youth, so go the nations. If youth of this generation are captured by materialism and indifference to the church, we are headed towards disaster. If our young people can be won for Jesus Christ, the greatest period in the world’s history lies ahead.”25 The North American press seemed to agree and gave Youth for Christ extensive coverage. The European tour had come to the attention of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, who had sent a two-word telegram to the editor of his Chicago Herald-American: “puff yfc.” Time magazine devoted four columns to the invasion and noted that President Truman had remarked that “this is what I hoped would happen in America.”26 The European response was more equivocal, however. The evangelists were frequently received by the mayors and dignitaries of the host European cities, and the crowds for their services numbered as many as eight thousand. But some war-weary Europeans resented the panache of the young preachers sporting glow-in-the-dark socks.27 With a sense of relief, Templeton returned to Toronto and was greeted at the airport by a crowd of three hundred, “whooping outspoken adoration,” according to a Globe and Mail reporter.28 Within days, he began planning a Toronto Youth for Christ rally that would fill Maple Leaf Gardens. “The message is fundamentally the same” From 1944 to 1948, Templeton’s Youth for Christ rallies combined the “good old-fashioned gospel” with the latest in Hollywood-style entertainment. “Our work is purely religious, but styled for young people in the tempo of the times,” Templeton told a reporter for the Globe and Mail. “Our approach to the age-old problem of interesting them is a new and modern one but the message is fundamentally the same.”29 He protested too much. Like Crossley and Hunter, Smith, and Buchman, Templeton’s message held to the traditional evangelical

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emphasis on conversion, while at the same time responding to contemporary concerns. The message of Templeton and the speakers at his Youth for Christ services was rooted in the North American fundamentalist tradition. But fundamentalism had evolved, and Templeton’s rallies reflected some of the changes. While many of the touchstones remained, other aspects of the tradition had been discarded. The mix of old and new could be seen in the yfc statement of faith. To anchor the new organization theologically, Youth for Christ leaders adopted the 1942 doctrinal statement of the National Association of Evangelicals (nae), an American organization which represented a new wave of conservative Protestants. The nae had grown out of a 1942 meeting of the “National Conference for United Action Among Evangelicals,” where delegates had agreed on a statement of faith. The following year this group of fundamentalist leaders had formed the nae as an irenic substitute to the combative World’s Christian Fundamentals Association (wcfa) and a doctrinally “orthodox” alternative to the mainstream Federal (later National) Council of Churches. The founders of the nae had hoped to distinguish their movement from militant fundamentalism in two ways: where fundamentalists had been divisive, evangelicals hoped to be united and irenic; where fundamentalists had withdrawn from the world, evangelicals hoped to catalyze a national revival that would bring North Americans back to God. In 1947, nae associates with a passion for higher education established Fuller Theological Seminary. Along with Fuller and the nae, Youth for Christ symbolized the beginning of the “new evangelicalism,” which in the 1950s moved out of the shadows and into the light with its leading spokesman, Billy Graham.30 In contrast to first generation fundamentalists, yfc and nae “evangelicals” were less dogmatic on doctrinal issues and more concerned with uniting Christians to bring about a world-wide revival.31 Reflecting this, the Youth for Christ constitution included a commitment to such basics of fundamentalist belief as biblical infallibility, but also underlined a commitment to “the spiritual unity of believers in Christ.”32 First generation fundamentalists like Oswald J. Smith had lived through the decline in respectability of traditional evangelism. He had suffered slights real and imagined for his beliefs. In the 1920s and 1930s Smith had responded defensively, speaking out against higher criticism, which he believed was responsible for the decline of vital Christianity. His close identification with premillennialism had marginalized Smith, separating him from a world apparently destined for destruction. He had been, and continued to be convinced that true followers of Christ should set themselves apart from those

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who were not believers and strive to live righteously. During what he thought were the “last days,” he preached the gospel in hope of “saving” as many as possible before Christ’s return. Second generation fundamentalists like Templeton were accustomed to their place on the periphery of Protestant respectability. The battles over evolution and the infallibility of the Bible had quieted. Templeton felt marginalized too, but this had more to do with his Church of the Nazarene connection than premillennialism, which was not a central tenet of his theology. Instead of accepting his position on society’s side-lines, however, Templeton worked to bring fundamentalism into the mainstream. As he saw it, first generation fundamentalists had been only half-right. The world might be destined for hell in the end, but Canadians were returning to God in the present. Evangelicals needed to capitalize on this interest by presenting the gospel in a contemporary format. Where Oswald J. Smith had been a cultural outsider, Templeton was a prototypical Canadian. That is not to say that Templeton and his colleagues ignored the concerns of first generation fundamentalists; attacks on higher criticism and evolution were not a priority of the new evangelicals. These issues were distractions from the central focus: bringing young women and men to conversion. In Reaching Youth for Christ, a “how-to” manual for those organizing young people’s evangelistic rallies, Torrey Johnson and his brother-in-law Robert Cook underlined that the “clear gospel and helpful Christian life truth must be packed into those brief 22 minutes” reserved for the sermon. “Above all, the messages must lead naturally into a definitive invitation to receive Christ.”33 This was the ultimate goal of Youth for Christ evangelists like Templeton: to bring young men and women into a personal relationship with Jesus (whose portrait looked out over the Massey Hall audience.) Templeton’s understanding of Christianity was centred around the New Testament figure. “The first intimations I got in religion,” he recalled later, “was of staying with a boyfriend overnight, and picking up Goodspeed’s translation of the gospel, and being absolutely bowled over by the persona, in plain English, of Jesus of Nazareth. And I was so excited by it that I couldn’t go to sleep. I borrowed the book and read it in a single reading.”34 Templeton was enamoured by the image of a forceful, dynamic Jesus who was both man and God. This was the Christ that he preached to his audiences. Jesus wanted to live day-to-day with men and women, Templeton told his listeners, if only they would let him. Too often, however, people allowed sin to get in the way. The just punishment for your sin, Templeton told his listeners, is death. But through Jesus’ death on the cross, which miraculously acted as a

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substitutionary atonement for your sins, you could have new life. Christ rose from the dead, and if you accepted Him into your heart, He would act as your advocate before Father God. Furthermore, Jesus would send His Holy Spirit, who would dwell in you, helping you to live a life pleasing to God. Christian living was not boring, Templeton emphasized. It brought excitement and satisfaction. Young people in their teens and twenties wanted a challenge, Johnson had counselled in Reaching Youth for Christ. They had suffered through an economic depression, then a war. “Young people are ready. Young people are hungry. Young people are responsive … they want something that is REAL!”35 The life stories offered by accomplished Christian men (and they were always men) underscored the point. The 1944 year-end Toronto Youth for Christ meeting featured testimonies by a policeman and war veteran, “Sqdrn Ldr Art Chote,” who had logged “more than 1,000 air hours.”36 Much of the focus of these meetings was on positive Christian living. Like his fundamentalist predecessors, Templeton championed nineteenth-century moral standards. Proscriptions of “bar-room vices” had been a feature of evangelistic services since Crossley and Hunter. Young men were considered especially prone to these sins, and considerable energy was expended to lure them from the tavern and into the church. But this was more than an antiquarian impulse – Templeton was also responding to concerns regarding young people’s morality that had emerged in the early 1940s. The decade was characterized by what one historian of Canadian religion has called a “moral revolution.”37 To contemporaries, society seemed to be more permissive: consumption of alcohol and tobacco increased, propriety in women’s fashions decreased, and films and theatrical revues were perceived to be more vulgar. Crowds of young soldiers on leave wandered aimlessly through the streets of major cities like Toronto, often accompanied by young women out for a “night on the town.” Periodicals with a wide readership in English Canada, such as Life and Reader’s Digest, had alerted adults to the problem of juvenile delinquency – from January to June 1943 over 1200 magazine articles had been devoted to the subject.38 World War II, and the anxious years that followed, made the problem seem especially acute. If teenage delinquency went unchecked, would Canada have a future? How could a democratic society, imperilled by fascism and then communism, survive? Educators attempted to instill in their students values that would ensure the future of democracy. Through the early 1940s, educational institutions like the University of Toronto, as well as women’s clubs, community agencies,

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and church groups gave considerable attention to the problem of juvenile delinquency.39 Youth for Christ leaders organized Saturday night rallies, in part because they thought that they could ameliorate the problem. A reporter for the Globe and Mail noted in 1946 that “Mr. Templeton gave one of the aims of the Youth for Christ Movement that of getting the young people off the streets on Saturday nights and giving them the straight gospel.”40 These attempts to address wayward youth were motivated by anxiety, but also by hope. Templeton aimed his efforts at the future leaders of society, and he took comfort in the thought that young people in the past had been especially responsive to the call to conversion. Youth could be carefree, to be sure. But they also could be deeply concerned by the eternal questions of life and death. Reflecting on his experiences in Toronto, Templeton later observed that “young people are essentially serious when it comes to the question of religion. Not going to church, not listening to the average sermon, but when it comes to thinking about what is there beyond in this life.”41 Templeton’s own journey to conversion was typical of many adolescents: prayed over by a pious mother who had instructed him in the faith and had urged him to attend church, he had eventually made the decision for himself. Youth for Christ evangelists, like politicians and educators, were also concerned for the future of the Western world. Canadians had made a tremendous sacrifice for the sake of world peace. One million of a total population of 11.5 million had seen military service during World War II, and 42,000 Canadians had died. No sooner had the Allies defeated one tyrant than another appeared to take his place. Beginning in 1945, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union posed a new threat to the West. Communist agitators in France and Italy appeared to be on the verge of winning political power, and Turkey, Iran, Greece, and China seemed poised to fall to the Soviet threat. At home, anxieties regarding communism were heightened by the 1946 defection of Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk in the Soviet embassy in Ottawa who sought asylum and produced documents revealing the operation of a Soviet spy ring in Canada. This revelation pushed Canadian foreign policy closer to that of the United States, which was militantly anti-communist. In the minds of many post-war Canadians, democracy and Christianity were synonymous; so too were communism and delinquency. If the moral backbone of youth could be strengthened, the country’s future would be secure.42 Therefore, Templeton’s sermon at the 1946 Maple Leaf Gardens Rally highlighted great religious leaders through

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the ages. Like contemporary young people, they had faced temptations and had stumbled and fallen into sin. But God was forgiving; He had helped them to get back on their feet. Restored in their relationship with their Maker, they had gone on to achieve great things for God and country. The same held true today, said Templeton. An article published in the Globe and Mail described how the sermon was brought to life on the platform. As Templeton reminded his audience of the “need for men of religion in the present day,” an actor, “representing the ‘delinquent boy’ slowly mounted the steps to take his place in the pageant.”43 The message was clear: true patriots were those who took up the new challenge of living for Christ. Young people were urged to convert for their country, but that was a bonus. More importantly, they should do it for themselves. This was the primary focus of Templeton’s preaching: the conversion of young men and women. The evangelist hammered away at the morality of his listeners in order to point out their need to start over again with Christ. Templeton knew whereof he spoke; he had done wrong as a young man, he told them. While sounding a note of judgment, his tone was compassionate. He contrasted the sins of youth with the sense of peace and satisfaction that came with living for Christ. Soloists and choirs sang “Jesus Can Satisfy the Heart” and “What A Friend We Have in Jesus.” Young people answered Templeton’s call and “came forward” at the end of his rallies. To those who were troubled by guilt, the evangelist promised a new beginning of hope and promise. Not everyone was burdened by a heavy conscience, of course. Others were searching for answers to the eternal questions; life and death were not abstractions to a generation that had come through the horrors of World War II. They were also deeply concerned for their future careers, relationships, and families. According to the evangelist, Christ had the answer to these questions, if young people would only listen. Templeton told them that Jesus Christ was “the most exciting man who’s ever lived … the most extraordinary man who’s ever lived,”44 and not just a man, but God Himself. He would be their constant friend, walking beside them, offering guidance along life’s way. Methods: “They want the best” Templeton’s rallies, a combination of entertainment, patriotism, and religion, struck a chord with the audience. In contrast to the “oldfashioned” message, the delivery followed the latest trends in entertainment. Reporters who covered Youth for Christ rallies had to remind themselves that they were at a religious function.

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That was the point. The meetings, Templeton told a reporter, were “meant to inspire interest rather than reverence.”45 This is what young men and women wanted, and they would get it; the question was, from whom, and where? There were plenty of options – in the 1940s merchants of commercial culture were increasingly aware of youth. Seventeen magazine began publishing in the Fall of 1944. The word “teenager” came into popular use, denoting a demographic group that had developed its own style, typified by the “bobbysoxers.” Young people spoke their own language – “jive talk” – and developed a particular musical taste – swing – that dominated radio. When the war ended, young people had money and the time and proclivity to spend it. Merchants attuned to this growing market responded with consumer-oriented fads and fashions, music, movies, and soft drinks.46 Evangelists like Templeton marketed Christianity through Youth for Christ rallies. Their strategy was made explicit in Johnson and Cook’s book, Reaching Youth for Christ. Independent, conservative evangelists could not take their authority for granted. They were competing directly with secular offerings; if they wanted to be successful, they would have to flawlessly mimic the style of popular entertainment. “Your young folk can hear, if they wish, worldly music, perfectly produced, any hour of the day or night,” observed Johnson and Cook. “They have found out what good production is, and brother, they’ll hold you to it. Dare to offer them something shoddy, and they’ll shun your meeting … They want the best.”47 That is what Templeton gave them. Using the devil’s means for God’s purposes, Templeton attracted young people to his rallies at Massey Hall or Maple Leaf Gardens by exploiting popular entertainment. The venue was consistent with Johnson and Cook’s advice to select “a neutral spot, one that will appeal alike to saints and sinners.”48 First-generation fundamentalist evangelists like Smith had brought contemporary musical and entertainment styles into their sacred space. From inside the walls of their building, they had enjoyed their own versions of worldly entertainment. The approach had underscored their sense of separateness from the world. Though Templeton’s Avenue Road Church of the Nazarene was commodious, he held his Youth for Christ rallies in Massey Hall and Maple Leaf Gardens – venues set aside for entertainment. It was not church; it was something different. The dour tone some associated with religion faded away in Templeton’s Hollywood-inspired meetings. The 1946 Maple Leaf Gardens rally, enthused a reporter for the Globe, was “as elaborate and as varied as a professional revue … With colourful costumes, fanfares of trumpets and effective colored lighting.”49

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The main entertainment was presented from “a stage surmounted by seven huge crosses and spotlights slashing the whole scene.”50 On this platform, jugglers and acrobats performed, while Templeton moved through the crowd with microphone in hand. In a manner “similar to radio quiz programs with interviews and testimonials on the P.A. system,” Templeton chatted and joked with young people in the audience.51 But the young people sitting in the stands were more than an audience – they were part of the show. The radio-style interviews encouraged them to be theatrical, making them temporary players in the production. In Templeton’s meetings, the lines between spectator and performer blurred. The spectacle closely resembled a patriotic review. Canada had been consumed by the war, and the renewal of patriotism that followed the defeat of Germany and Japan permeated all of life. In keeping with the nationalistic spirit, Templeton decorated his platform in red, white, and blue and opened his meetings with the national anthem and marchers – Boy Scouts in twos – carrying the flags of the Allied nations to the stage. At the Gardens rally, members of the choir wore white, except those in the centre, who wore black, forming a V for “Victory.”52 A typical Massey Hall rally, noted a reporter for Maclean’s in 1947, “opened with the National Anthem and swung into a fast-paced musical program.” The performances were never boring, shifting briskly among piano solos, vocal solos, male quartets, brass quartets, saxophone trios, cornetists, a male chorus, a female chorus, and specialty acts like the ubiquitous Cleveland Colored Quartet. One Templeton rally at Maple Leaf Gardens, according to Maclean’s, featured a “2,000 voice choir, a five-piano team, trumpeters, [and] a band.”53 Most of the musicians were the same age as the audience members. In 1946, Templeton’s Toronto Youth for Christ team included Ted Smith, the pianist and musical director, who was eighteen, and Gus Ambrose, the song leader, who was twenty-three. His brother, Tommy Ambrose, a crowd favourite, delighted audiences with flawless renditions of “Negro spirituals,” at the age of four. Attractive young women were also a central feature: Connie Templeton sang solos from centre stage, sometimes accompanied by the “Youth for Christ Octette.” Even the evangelist got into the act, occasionally singing a duet with his wife.54 At the centre of it all stood Templeton. Described by a reporter in Chicago as “dark and remindful of a Hollywood handsome pastor,”55 Templeton dressed in the latest fashion, tailored to perfection. United Church of Canada leader James Mutchmor remembered that at their first meeting, his “office girls almost swooned as Templeton moved

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by into my office.”56 A reporter for the Toronto Globe who covered the evangelist’s arrival to Toronto in 1946 after the Youth for Christ tour of Europe caught a glimpse of Templeton’s magnetic appeal. As a result of the surging crowd at the airport, “businessmen on their way to Montreal were backed into corners and nearly missed their connections. One such, caught in the doorway muttered … a string of well-selected phrases not usually uttered at the triumphant homecoming of a gentleman of the cloth.” But Templeton was no ordinary cleric. When he finally arrived, “nattily attired in a buff colored sports jacket … a checked waistcoat and bow-tie” he was “greeted with shouts, sighs, [and] the odd stifled scream … As he came in the door from the plane ramp there were howls of: ‘There he is,’ and wails of: ‘Oh, I can’t see him.’”57 It was the kind of reception reserved for movie stars and musicians. To his adoring fans, Templeton was a celebrity. Templeton’s airport reception also testifies to the evangelist’s success at creating a distinct fundamentalist subculture. There was no shortage of stars for young people to adore in post-World War II Canada. But the evangelist’s message implicitly counselled young Christians to look away from the world and toward God. From this vantage point, Templeton seemed set apart from the rest of society, and therefore special. Furthermore, among God’s people, Templeton was unique and therefore a worthy object of adoring affection.58 His performances on the platforms of Massey Hall and Maple Leaf Gardens were flawless; Templeton spoke with an ease and ability few could match. “I think it was because I was accustomed as an artist to seeing things in the whole,” he recalled later. “I found I could make pictures with words as well as with crayon or brush.”59 He was also comfortable, a reporter noted, using the “slang terms and informal jive idiom [young people] understand and like so well.”60 He was the most versatile of all the preachers in Youth for Christ, Torrey Johnson remembered, and could adapt to any situation. The only problem, observed Johnson, was that “you could get caught up in his eloquence and miss the message.”61 A woman who had attended a Templeton service concurred. Her theology was liberal, she recalled several decades later, so “it wasn’t what he said that impressed me … it was the man himself. He was almost hypnotic.”62 Templeton’s facility with words made him a natural radio evangelist. Templeton’s voice, remarked a reporter for Maclean’s, “is highly radioactive. It fits the medium as though it had been poured into the microphone.”63 In Reaching Youth for Christ, Johnson and Cook had asked rhetorically, “In a youth program, dare we neglect the one thing which … more nearly typifies the spirit of young people than anything else?”64 Templeton dared not: like his colleagues in the

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United States, he made radio a priority. On Saturday evenings, his Youth for Christ services were broadcast live from Massey Hall on the Toronto cbc station, cjbc. On Sunday afternoons at 1:30, Charles and Connie hosted the “Radio Gospel League,” heard from Charlottetown to Vancouver.65 Using forms of contemporary commercial culture popular among his target audiences, Templeton spread his oldfashioned message of sin and salvation beyond the city of Toronto. In making the move to radio evangelism, Templeton drew on the experience and advice of colleagues such as Oswald J. Smith. Templeton enjoyed a comfortable working relationship with Smith and his son and successor at the People’s Church, Paul B. Smith. Guest speakers at Templeton’s Saturday evening Youth for Christ meetings sometimes spoke at Oswald Smith’s Sunday morning service at Peoples Church. Templeton also joined forces with Toronto businessmen. His meetings, like those of most other Youth for Christ evangelists, were sponsored by the Christian Business Men’s Committee – in 1945, at least thirty of these organizations were supporting Youth for Christ rallies. A group of influential Torontonians had long bolstered evangelistic work in the city. In the 1920s and 1930s members of this network contributed to the success of Oswald Smith’s various endeavours; in the 1940s, influential businessmen gravitated towards Charles Templeton. Though the Youth for Christ rallies were selfsustaining – the weekly offering of approximately $800 covered the hall rental, secretarial help, and advertisements – good stewardship was required to ensure that no money was wasted.66 The members of the Toronto Christian Business Men’s Committee may have seen in Templeton’s Youth for Christ rallies a reflection of their own convictions, and aiding the rallies provided a constructive outlet for their religious energies. In order to further the work, some of them seem to have drawn on their connections to the civic establishment to add legitimacy to the services. The attendance of the mayor of Toronto at the first Gardens rally and a later Massey Hall service may have been facilitated by members of the committee.67 While some of these businessmen were in a position to provide advice on advertising, Templeton needed little help on this front. His years at the Toronto Globe had given him first-hand knowledge of the daily operations of a newspaper. Templeton knew how to gain a reader’s attention and was perfectly in tune with the advertising strategies of the day. Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, advertising agencies had shifted their focus from the product to the consumer. The rise of psychology as an academic discipline provided advertisers with insights into human nature that they

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attempted to exploit for the sake of sales. Social scientists identified the motivations of consumers, and copywriters promised that their product would meet those desires. The introduction of market research changed the business of advertising further. Advertisers stopped viewing consumers as a single mass market with common interests, seeing them instead as segments with particular desires that responded to specific strategies.68 Templeton did not attempt to reach all Torontonians with his advertising. He recognized that he would be much more effective if he targeted one segment of the market: young people. Following the shift in advertising from the product to the consumer, Templeton put youth front and centre. Where previous evangelists had placed pictures of the speaker in their ads, Templeton included a photograph of a happy young couple. Where other revivalists had highlighted the title of the speaker’s presentation, the evangelist focused on young people’s concerns and used their own language. A poster advertising a Templeton yfc service asked, “But what’s all this got to do with me?” “Puh-llenty, puh-llenty” came the response. “Get this: Templeton’s coming.”69 The evangelist knew that young people cared about the opinion of their peers, so he told them that their friends would be at yfc. An advertisement for the 1946 Maple Leaf Gardens rally, the largest on the newspaper page, declared that “Everybody’s Doing It! Doing What? Why, Preparing for the Gardens!” “All Ontario is athrill with anticipation,” the ad claimed, for the “greatest gospel rally in canada’s history.” The insights of psychologists, backed up by intuition, told Templeton that youth were looking for adventure, and his advertisements promised young people that the evangelist would deliver. Another advertisement for the same Gardens rally promised in staccato: “20,000 Expected! – Internationally-known Speakers! – Thrilling Music! – 2,000 Voice Choir! – Colourful Pageantry! Event of the Year!”70 The response, not surprisingly, was overwhelming. The Response: Taking a Manly Stand for Jesus Thousands of young people responded to these advertisements, and generous press coverage resulted. Articles and photographs saw Templeton off on the 1946 Youth for Christ European Invasion and greeted his return to Toronto. The Massey Hall rallies received similar treatment. Maclean’s, Montreal’s Standard Magazine, and New World (a Toronto version of Life) published articles on the Toronto Youth for Christ phenomenon. The Toronto Star and Globe and Mail provided coverage of the 1946 Gardens rally on pages two and three respectively,

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and the Globe included several large pictures of the spectacle, including a photograph of a couple who had left their wedding reception in Ottawa to attend the meeting. The Toronto newspapers tracked Templeton’s evangelistic career long after he left the city in 1948. Fundamentalist Torontonians must have been pleased by the coverage. Not since the early twentieth century had evangelistic meetings been given this kind of attention.71 Journalists seemed most impressed by the size of the audiences at Templeton’s rallies. According to a headline in the Toronto Star, 16,000 packed Maple Leaf Gardens in June 1946 and “hundreds” were turned away.72 In full, 210 young men and women “came forward” at the end of the rally and professed a conversion, bringing the 1945–46 total of converts at Toronto Youth for Christ services to 1,157.73 Templeton claimed that his Saturday night meetings, which packed the 2,800 seat auditorium of Massey Hall from September to June each year, were the largest weekly yfc services in the world. Of those who attended these rallies, according to one estimate, 75 per cent were under 35 years of age, and 65 per cent were in their teens.74 No mention was made of the ratio of men to women. Though women were drawn to these services, they were not well represented on the platform. In the field of religion, as in the fields of politics, entertainment, and education, men continued to exert control. Certainly, Canadian women had taken great strides forward in the 1940s. During World War II, thousands had banded together in volunteer societies, collecting clothes and preparing parcels to ship overseas. Many more had entered the civilian workforce in war-related industries. And a total of 43,000 “Jill Canucks” had served in military uniform as nurses, drivers, stretcher bearers, cooks, secretaries, and machine operators in Europe. These experiences strengthened the self-image of many women. Yet for all the changes women had experienced, their leadership in evangelistic services was still limited – only men spoke at Templeton’s Youth for Christ services. Each of them radiated masculinity; to be a Christian was to be strong, brave, and above all, athletic. The lineup at Templeton’s rallies was a “who’s who” of North American Protestant athletes: one week might feature football star Glen Wagner, the next week Bob Finney, a collegiate boxing champion. Leroy Pfund, a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers who refused to play on Sunday, was a favourite guest at American services, and Youth for Christ stadium rallies occasionally included an exhibition race between Gil Dodds, the World’s Champion indoor miler, and a local track star.75 Advertised as “The Flying Parson,” “The Iron Deacon,” and “The Perambulating Parson,” (even with God’s help, marketing-savvy

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evangelists still had bad days) Dodds had been undefeated in thirtynine consecutive races at distances of 1,000 yards to two miles. In 1943 he received the James E. Sullivan Memorial Trophy as the American amateur athlete of the year. Yet two years later, at the peak of his career, he retired from the track to take up a full-time position behind the pulpit. “Right now something inside of me tells me not to run in competition,” he had told an incredulous reporter. “I intend to follow that inner feeling because I believe I have a greater challenge in my religious work than I have ever had in my running.”76 Here was the muscular Christianity that fundamentalists like Templeton were trying to project. His late nineteenth-century predecessors had consistently preached a manly message in an attempt to prove that the church was not solely the domain of women. Templeton’s Toronto colleague Oswald J. Smith had avoided that kind of appeal. Outside the established churches and society in general, he had bigger challenges to deal with; demonstrating that fundamentalists were real men was not his first priority. The arrival of Oxford Groupists like race-car driver Reggie Holmes marked a return to the concerns of the past. Frank Buchman hoped to evangelize the world in a generation, and that required an appeal that would resonate with the best and brightest men of the day. Similarly, the prominence of Gil Dodds in Youth for Christ rallies signalled fundamentalists’ return to public life. They cared deeply about what the world thought of them and sought to demonstrate that one could be both a real Christian and a real man. This was not masculinity as the world understood it, however. Decades after Frank Sinatra had left bobby-soxers banging on the doors of Massey Hall, historians concluded that what made the singer so attractive was not simply his music, but his entire approach to life. Fundamentalists saw it immediately, and it frightened them; they offered a substitute in men like Gil Dodds. Sinatra was known for his clothes; Dodds was celebrated for his enduring character. Sinatra could sing, but the Perambulating Parson could run. Sinatra oozed sensuality; he altered the timing of his delivery, extending notes and phrases to evoke a casual sexuality, sending some young women into fits of ecstasy. Dodds, in contrast, was the model of selfdiscipline and control. He was admired among fundamentalists chiefly for the ease with which he had “left it all behind.” In the end, his accomplishments in the realm of sports were piddling – more meaningful was his work for Christ. Walking away from a life in sports seemed to be a prerequisite for evangelism with Youth for Christ. Templeton claimed to have been an accomplished athlete – advertisements declared that he had been

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“quite a halfback on the Balmy Beach football team,” a Toronto club that played in a semi-professional league.77 His friend and fellow yfcer Billy Graham let drop that his call to evangelism had cut short a career in semi-professional baseball. Years later, Graham observed that he had only made baseball teams “as a substitute, playing sometimes when someone was sick. … the talent for baseball obviously was not there.”78 Similarly, Templeton admitted after the fact that he was at best a “second string” player on the Balmy Beach club.79 Templeton’s passion for a “muscular Christianity” could also be attributed to the circumstances of his childhood – Templeton’s father had abandoned him just as he was entering his teen years. Searching for a substitute father figure, he had found it in the Jesus of the New Testament.80 Historian Susan Curtis contends that Jesus provided a surrogate father figure for early twentieth-century social gospel leaders who had grown up without fathers. They rejected the feminized Christ of the Victorian Age, emphasizing instead a Jesus who was “robust, muscular and active.”81 This image prevailed in popular accounts of Christ’s life published in the 1930s, when Templeton converted to Christianity. As a result, the Jesus that he came to know and preach was a “man’s man.” Templeton’s sermons themselves radiated a forceful masculinity. One of his tracts added several footnotes to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the meek,” quoted the evangelist, who continued, “yes, but thrice blessed are those who do vigorous battle for God, who fearlessly hurl themselves against every force of evil, and assault every citadel of sin.” The model for this “Vigorous Christianity” (the title of the tract) was Christ himself. “See Jesus in the Temple,” marvelled the evangelist, “pulling back the sleeves of His robe and baring bronzed and muscular arms that had served their apprenticeship wielding an adze in a carpenter shop.”82 Followers of Christ were not sissies; they were tough, strong men of God. Templeton and his colleagues were explicit about their attempts to appeal to young men. In “Torrey Talks to Teen-Agers,” a column in Youth for Christ Magazine, Torrey Johnson related that at a meeting in Washington State, “I knew the Lord was working … but I was reluctant to close the service, for most of the response had come from girls.” The tide of the meeting turned, however, when a young man strode to the pulpit, stood before his peers and blurted out, “What’s the matter fellows? Haven’t we got any courage? Aren’t we men? Can’t we take a stand for the Lord Jesus Christ?” As a result, Johnson noted approvingly, “many young fellows came down the aisle.”83 Templeton’s emphasis was similar, as evidenced in his masculinized gospel messages and his choice of speakers. Star athletes, policemen,

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and veterans – former soldiers who had bravely fought for the sake of their country – were archetypes of manliness. Outside Massey Hall in 1946, the reporter for the Montreal Standard had been impressed by the young women pounding on the doors. Inside Massey Hall, the evangelist was more concerned about the response of young men.

“just the quiet techniques of modern salesmanship” templeton and the united church of canada, 1948–1957 The Evangelist: Charles Templeton, 1948–1957 Through the 1940s, thousands of young people came forward in response to Templeton’s youth-oriented appeal. On the surface, Templeton had every reason to be happy. Under the surface, however, he was troubled by his work with Youth for Christ. There were several problems. “There was a shallowness in what we were doing,” he recalled later, “a tendency to equate success with numbers.”84 In addition, his faith was being eroded by doubts concerning many of the central tenets of fundamentalist Protestantism. Particularly problematic were literal interpretations of biblical events; he recalled later that “I just didn’t find it possible to believe the Bible stories.”85 Fundamentalist theology did not seem to have any answers to the questions Templeton was asking. He was not alone. In the late 1940s, key members of the irenic branch of fundamentalists – those who had coalesced under the umbrella of the National Association of Evangelicals, Youth for Christ, and Fuller Seminary – spoke out against what they saw as the anti-intellectualism of fundamentalist thought. Most notable was American Carl F. Henry, who published The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism in 1947. Without programs to apply the gospel “effectively to crucial problems confronting the modern mind,” wrote Henry, post-war fundamentalism could expect to sink back into the shadows of cultural life that it had occupied through the 1920s and 1930s. What was needed was an intelligent fundamentalism that adopted a public, culture-forming role in North America.86 Convinced that an education would help him to develop a more intelligent theology, Templeton sought out James Mutchmor, the influential secretary of the United Church of Canada’s Board of Evangelism and Social Service. Their meeting in 1947 marked the beginning of Templeton’s move from the fundamentalist fold to the mainstream denominations. His Youth for Christ colleagues were

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later convinced that he had been “enticed” by the National Council of Churches to join the mainstream denominations, but Templeton had made the first move.87 He wanted to attend Princeton Seminary, he told Mutchmor, but Princeton required an undergraduate degree, and Templeton’s formal education had ended at grade 10. He had taken a short correspondence course offered by the Church of the Nazarene, but that was the extent of his formal education. His star had risen in the Church of the Nazarene because of his gifts as an evangelist – no theological training was required. Could Mutchmor help him? Mutchmor brought the matter up with his American colleague, Jesse Bader, the executive secretary of the Department of Evangelism for the National Council of Churches. Together they convinced the president of Princeton Theological Seminary, John McKay, to accept Templeton into the Master of Divinity program. McKay consented, though he stipulated that no degree would be granted. Templeton was thrilled.88 His fundamentalist colleagues, in contrast, were appalled. Their brightest star was about to abandon the cause to study at what they considered to be a liberal, mainstream institution.89 In conversations both formal and casual, they tried to dissuade Templeton from attending Princeton. Torrey Johnson and Billy Graham urged Templeton to attend an evangelical school, like Moody Bible Institute. Graham tried again, joining forces with Oswald J. Smith, but it was no use. Templeton was not interested in attending Moody or the new Fuller Seminary. He later admitted that he was “seeking respectability in a sense,” moving from what he believed was an anti-intellectual fundamentalist tradition characterized by a naive belief in biblical infallibility, and toward the modern, respectable, open-minded Christianity of mainstream Protestantism. He was also seeking respect from the world in general. In the 1950s, only 5 per cent of Canadian men held a university degree, and only a handful could claim to have studied at Princeton. In 1948 Charles and Connie packed their belongings and, after an emotional farewell at the Avenue Road church, headed south.90 While Graham had been attempting to dissuade Templeton from attending Princeton, Templeton had been urging Graham to join him. Templeton and Graham had become close friends after meeting backstage at a Chicago Youth for Christ rally in 1945. Their friendship had deepened during the Youth for Christ European Invasion in 1946. Templeton had been widely acknowledged as the more gifted of the two and, in the eyes of many, was on the verge of becoming North America’s next great evangelist. In fact, in 1946, when the National Association of Evangelicals published the portraits of evangelicals “best used of God” in the association’s five year history, Templeton was pictured while Graham was left out.91

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Graham shared Templeton’s questions about the Bible. In his memoirs, Graham recalled that “the particular intellectual problem” that he was wrestling with in the late 1940s “was the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures. Seeming contradictions and problems with interpretation defied intellectual solutions, or so I thought. Could the Bible be trusted completely?”92 The two friends had met on several occasions before Templeton left for Princeton, sequestering themselves in their rooms where they discussed the basics of their faith. “We are getting by on animal magnetism and youthful enthusiasm and natural talent,” Templeton had told Graham at one of these meetings. “But that’s not going to work when we’re forty or fifty. You’ve got to come with me.”93 Graham demurred; he had numerous commitments to honour, he replied. (He had left Youth for Christ and struck out on his own as an independent evangelist.) They went their separate ways, but resumed the discussion at the 1949 College Briefing Conference in the San Bernadino Mountains, east of Los Angeles. After an especially combative session, Graham retreated to his cabin, spoke with friends and advisors, then went for a walk in the woods. Sitting on a rock in the dark of night, he recalled later, he prayed: “Father, I am going to accept this as Thy word – by faith! I’m going to allow faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts, and I will believe this to be Your inspired Word.” He rose renewed and empowered. Months later, the conversions of several Hollywood celebrities at his Los Angeles evangelistic campaign garnered front page coverage. Graham became a phenomenon and never looked back.94 While Billy Graham was becoming famous in Los Angeles, Templeton was buried in books at Princeton. These years were among the happiest of his life – the seminary proved to be a welcoming place to the evangelist. The views of fundamentalists notwithstanding, Princeton Seminary was no bastion of Christian modernism in the late 1940s. While part of the liberal Protestant tradition, the seminary was moving in a conservative direction on the matter of evangelism. In fact, during the tenure of President McKay in the 1940s and 1950s, Princeton played a central role in attempting to bridge the gap between fundamentalists and liberals regarding evangelism. The fundamentalist-modernist theological battles of the past four decades were little more than “unholy horseplay,” said McKay. He implored Protestants of various denominational backgrounds to avoid being “unkindly critical of any other which God is manifestly using to lead men to a new life in Christ, even though objectionable features may attend the missionary effort.”95 What was needed instead was applied Christianity, said McKay, and especially conversionist evangelism. The presence at Princeton of Templeton, one of North America’s most talented evangelists, was one step in this direction.

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Templeton enjoyed campus life, but classes bored him. Frustrated with the pace of the professors, and perhaps the discipline required in coursework, he spent most of his time in solitary study. He read widely, trying to settle the basic questions that troubled him. As a result, he recalled later, “I began to read the Bible differently. And it became clear to me that the … Old Testament was a primitive book about a primitive people.” The New Testament was another matter; he “believed enough of it to tell me that Jesus of Nazareth was something very, very special.” He soon began to feel a measure of certainty about his beliefs, “not through enlightenment but through a conscious act of commitment.” Graham had renewed his faith in the woods; Templeton recovered his faith in the library. The Bible might not be infallible, Templeton concluded, but he was certain that Jesus was the Son of God. After two and a half years, he left Princeton without finishing his course of studies.96 Templeton had severed his ties with Youth for Christ specifically, and fundamentalism in general. His new colleagues and friends were part of the mainstream establishment, and in 1950 he began leading services for mainstream churches. In addition, Templeton served as interim pastor at a Presbyterian church in nearby Trenton, New Jersey. During his final year at Princeton, the Philadelphia Presbytery ordained him, waiving the requirement of a degree. Several years later, he was given an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania – testimony to the respect and affection he garnered after only a few years in the mainstream fold. In 1951, the National Council of Churches (ncc), which represented Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and others, hired Templeton to lead preaching “missions” throughout the United States. Since the turn of the century, the ncc denominations had been preoccupied with the social gospel. After the war, however, they rediscovered mass evangelism, declaring 1952 “The Year of Evangelism.” The National Council’s Department of Evangelism worked closely with Canada’s United Church Board of Evangelism and Social Service, and it was agreed that Templeton would spend from September to December of each year leading campaigns in Canada for the United Church, and from January to May holding meetings in the United States for the ncc. From 1952 to 1954 Templeton served as the secretary of evangelism for the National Council. Through 1955–56 he was based in New York City as the director of evangelism for the Presbyterian Church of the usa. He led or coordinated evangelistic campaigns throughout this period and hosted a Sunday morning television program for youth, broadcast on cbs, called “Look Up And Live.”97 Templeton moved with ease between the ncc and the United Church. The National Council in the United States did not wield the

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same authority as the United Church in Canada, which aspired to quasi-establishment. Still, the two organizations had much in common: both were trying to meet the needs of their middle- and uppermiddle class constituents by articulating a gospel message that, while in tune with the times, was based on the touchstones of orthodox Christian belief. In both Canada and the United States, the mainstream churches had returned to an evangelical emphasis on sin and salvation in the years that followed World War II. This had its roots in the 1930s, when the post-millennial hope of building the kingdom of heaven on earth – central to liberal Protestantism – had given way to the Depression and the rise of fascism. In the United States and Europe, theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and Karl Barth had led the church in a revival of interest in Saint Augustine’s notions of sin and grace. In English Canada, observes historian John Webster Grant, “‘orthodoxy’ became a respectable word again.” The United Church, which had developed a reputation for theological vagueness, had issued a statement of faith in 1940 and a catechism in 1944 which “reflected a return to the central themes of the Bible.”98 It was the best of both worlds for Templeton. The mainstream churches’ emphasis on sin and salvation was not far removed from his fundamentalist roots. At the same time, the mainstream churches wielded an authority in English-speaking Canadian cultural life of which fundamentalists could only dream. Templeton led campaigns throughout English Canada as enthusiasm for mass evangelism peaked in the 1950s. The New Years Day 1954 edition of the United Church Observer referred to the “over 230 various campaigns of evangelism which have been planned for and promoted this Fall or prepared for the season leading up to Easter, 1954.” At the forefront of this renewal was Templeton, the United Church’s leading evangelist. According to the United Church Observer, Templeton “showed that the day of mass evangelism is not something that belongs only to the past.”99 Templeton adjusted the tone and substance of his evangelism in an attempt to meet the needs of his mainstream constituents in the 1950s. He used “a persuasive, attractive sales approach that has set a new streamlined standard for evangelism,”100 observed a journalist for American Magazine. Like evangelists before him, and his friend Billy Graham, Templeton self-consciously distanced his work from the religious hucksters who had given revivalism a bad name. For instance, he put himself on salary to avoid the criticism that he was getting rich on the “love offering.”101 Looking back to their own tradition of late nineteenth-century urban revivalism, mainstream circles hailed Templeton as “the

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Dwight L. Moody of our Day.”102 His new style drew thousands in American cities like Evansville, Indiana, and in English-speaking Canadian cities like Vancouver, Winnipeg, St. Catharines, Ontario and Sydney, Nova Scotia. The mainstream denominational presses boasted conversions in the manner of church presses in the late nineteenth century. In Sydney, for instance, it was reported in 1953 that the city’s most notorious bootlegger had attended a Templeton meeting and then walked to a nearby pier and pitched his entire stock of whiskey into the ocean. The attendance and apparent conversion of bootleggers and others led many to believe that North America was entering a period of great revival.103 The years during and after the war marked a renaissance in Canada’s Protestant mainstream churches, where 70 per cent of Protestants could be found. United, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Lutheran congregations swelled; in the period from 1951 to 1961 United Church membership increased by 25 per cent. The renewal of Protestantism in English Canada went beyond church attendance and membership. Men joined service clubs and cell groups and attended conferences to pray and read the Bible. Universities began departments of religion and expanded their seminaries to accommodate the increasing numbers of students interested in entering the ministry. Subscriptions to religious periodicals increased, as did sales of religious books.104 Religion was marketed in a variety of forms to Canadians eager to explore their spirituality. Magazines like Reader’s Digest carried numerous articles on the benefits of prayer. Religious books like Billy Graham’s Peace With God (1953) topped the bestseller list. Movies such as The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben Hur (1959) mixed pageantry, heroism, and piety. Millions of Canadians tuned in their radios and televisions to hear the messages of celebrated American religious figures such as Norman Vincent Peale, a Protestant, and Fulton Sheen, a Roman Catholic bishop. And evangelists like Templeton organized evangelistic campaigns that drew North Americans to sermons on sin and salvation.105 The Message: “Christianity – a commodity as necessary to life as salt” In many ways, Templeton’s message in the 1950s echoed what he had said a decade earlier. He castigated sin, especially the “bar-room vices” that ostensibly led to juvenile delinquency. His primary purpose was to bring about in his listeners a conversion to Christ and then encourage them to take up a full and abundant Christian life. And his concern for souls spilled over into a concern for the nation; as in the late 1940s, he was convinced that communism was a worldwide threat that could

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only be defeated by a democracy made strong by a God-fearing population. At the same time, however, Templeton’s message had changed significantly. In the 1940s he had preached an “old-fashioned gospel”; in the 1950s, by contrast, he drew upon modern ideas to reinterpret traditional evangelical concepts. Though Templeton’s focus was now on adults, young people were still targeted in his campaigns. Post-war anxieties over “juvenile delinquency” persisted into the 1950s, and the evangelist continued to speak out against illicit pleasures. “Who can doubt,” asked Templeton rhetorically, “that the lower moral standards and the increased delinquency of our day is not – at least in part – the harvest of the vapid and empty – and sometimes downright depraved ideas that have been sown in our minds by companions of our leisure?”106 In a meeting for young people in Vancouver, he focused on alcohol and premarital sex. “Boys, if you want to be promiscuous, don’t expect the girl you marry to be pure,” he remarked. With some sarcasm, he asked them to imagine the “men of distinction” shown in popular alcohol advertisements after a night of drinking. “How did their evenings end up?” Templeton asked. “They were staggering.”107 An apparent decline in the morality of youth signalled for Templeton a decline in the strength of the nation. As noted above, many agreed with this assessment: politicians, intellectuals, educators, and religious leaders in English Canada and the United States were concerned with the meaning of liberal democracy in the post-war era and the need to defend it from internal and external threats.108 Some turned to the universities for assistance against the enemies of freedom. Senator Donald Cameron, who directed the Banff School of Fine Arts, cited a University of Chicago academic’s claim that it was “useless to hope that democracy can survive unless all people are educated for freedom. Mass stupidity can now mean mass suicide.”109 Others looked to religion to bolster the Western powers. They continued to view Christianity and democracy as synonymous; if Christianity crumbled, so too would the nation. Some turned to evangelists such as Templeton for answers. He believed that “the national malaise of souls back of the current revival of interest in religion has been induced, in part, by the pressure and uncertainty of life … in this atomic age.”110 “The world is sick, seriously, critically sick,” Templeton continued, “and all kinds of radical remedies have been proposed. It is said that we need a revolution. Indeed we do! – but not as the Communists are propounding it. We need, instead, a revolution … Christian style.”111 In the fight against communism, an organized, united response was required. The days of making do with ad hoc efforts

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had passed. If the enemies of democracy were to be vanquished, it would require the unwavering loyalty of the churches to the gospel of Christ.112 This was the message Templeton delivered to his audiences in the 1950s. His sermon “Revolution … Christian Style” was delivered at least once during every Templeton mission. The evangelist contrasted two upper rooms. In one, Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital, “the bible of modern communism. Out of this upper room in London flowed influences that have changed the history of the world; a doctrine of strife and duplicity that has already taken the lives of millions of men and women … and the end is not yet!” In the other upper room, in Jerusalem, Jesus’ disciples were transformed by the Holy Spirit. “Out of that upper room in Jerusalem,” said Templeton, “flowed influences that have changed the history of the world – a gospel of love and brotherhood that has already taken the lives of millions of men and women and transformed them … and again the end is not yet!”113 Which upper room would set the course for the future? he asked. It was up to his listeners to determine the outcome, and in this way his message had changed. Youth for Christ evangelists believed that the contest would be decided by higher powers – God would overcome the devil and establish His kingdom on earth. In the 1950s, Templeton was convinced that Christians could help turn the battle in God’s favour. “The hope for the maintenance of peace in the world is based on faith in God and love for your fellow-man,” Templeton told an audience in St. Catharines. They could help to determine the outcome of history; they could further the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth.114 This confidence in humanity’s ability to improve the world reflected the liberal Protestantism that Templeton had adopted at Princeton Seminary. On the surface, “Revolution … Christian Style” sounded like a Youth for Christ sermon. Underneath the veneer of anti-communism, however, there were significant differences. In his Youth for Christ days, Templeton had used modern techniques to attract audiences to his old-fashioned gospel. In his evangelism for the National Council and the United Church, both Templeton’s techniques and his gospel were self-consciously modern – he drew on contemporary ideas to reinterpret older evangelical doctrines. In his pamphlet The Church and Its Evangelistic Task, published in 1952, the evangelist observed that “the peculiar pressures and tensions of the historical situation demand that the message of the church be constantly reinterpreted … We must know our message and our generation, and communicate the one to the other.”115 Whereas Youth for Christ services had been “In tune with the times, but

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anchored to the rock [of Christ],” Templeton’s services in the 1950s were advertised as simply “in tune with our times.”116 Fundamentalists who trumpeted their allegiance to the oldfashioned gospel disagreed vehemently with this approach. But not adjusting Christian belief to modern insights was an act of disobedience to God, Templeton countered. He told his former colleagues that their “basic error is the denial of the intellect. Refusing to love God ‘with the whole mind,’ fundamentalist theology suffers from arrested development … This static kind of orthodoxy was unknown to the early Christian preachers.”117 He was arguing, in effect, that his evangelism, rather than the fundamentalists’, was more in keeping with the apostles. Central to this modern gospel was a new terminology. “It is not enough to parrot the phrases of another day and to restate the message of an earlier generation. Evangelism must grow up,” he declared. Like Frank Buchman, Templeton discarded fundamentalist stock phrases – they sent people to the exits. He wanted to draw middle-class English-speaking Canadians who had previously shied away from evangelistic services.118 To this end, he counselled committees preparing his campaigns to steer clear of certain terms in their advertisements. “It is wise, in many communities, to avoid the word ‘evangelistic’ as this sometimes has bad connotations,” he advised readers of his “Manual for a Templeton Christian Mission.” He suggested to the planning team numbers that the campaign be called “The Templeton Christian Mission.”119 He also distanced himself from his former colleagues in his approach to devotional life. Fundamentalists like Oswald J. Smith set aside an hour or more each morning to listen to God speak through the Bible and then to respond in prayer. In this way, they “recharged” their faith so that they could last the day in a hostile and sinful world. Templeton’s doubts about the veracity of the Bible led him away from the conviction that it was God’s infallible, spoken word. He believed instead that God spoke to His people directly through the everyday stuff of life. Sounding like Frank Buchman twenty years before, Templeton told an audience in Winnipeg in 1952 that “no prayer is worth saying unless half the time is spent in listening.”120 God was all around, ready to listen and to offer guidance whenever asked. “We must realize that in every experience of life He is with us, not on occasion but always,” he counselled. “When this has been realized we are ready to begin to obey the suggestion to ‘pray without ceasing.’” Liberal Protestants insisted that religion had to come to terms with secular culture. An hour set apart was difficult to find in the hustle and bustle of life; therefore, prayers could be offered at any

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time of the day. Templeton advised his listeners to “pray while dusting or doing the dishes, while driving the car, while walking down the street, while mingling with a crowd.”121 The liberal Protestant practice of adjusting Christian belief to the norms of modern culture was also reflected in Templeton’s approach to modern scientific and intellectual discoveries. “What is needed is twentieth-century Christians,” he remarked in his book Evangelism for Tomorrow, women and men whose faith was open to the “insights that have accrued to our generation through the increased understanding of theology, psychology, sociology, and other fields of human knowledge. The gains effected through biblical criticism, archaeological research, and a maturing theology must not be lost.”122 His sermons were punctuated with references to Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, and other great minds of the day.123 Templeton was attempting to take advantage of the renewed academic respect for Christianity that had emerged in the late 1940s. The cover of the 8 March 1948 issue of Time magazine carried a picture of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and the caption “Man’s story is not a success story.” In the aftermath of the Holocaust and Hiroshima, Niebuhr’s emphasis on the Christian doctrine of original sin touched a chord with many. Some of the traditional doctrines of Christianity were back in vogue.124 Even more significant was the renewed respect for religion among scientists. As he probed the secrets of the atom, John J. Floyd, the American reactor research coordinator at Brookhaven National Laboratories, remarked, “I feel God is there.”125 Influential psychologists such as Henry C. Link also spoke out in favour of religion. Link observed rather unequivocally that “individuals who believed in religion or attended a church had significantly better personalities than those who did not.”126 Floyd and Link were not endorsing the specifics of mainstream Protestant thought, but that did not stop Templeton from building on the new academic respect for religion and incorporating scientific and psychological insights into matters of faith. Templeton quoted approvingly, for instance, Oxford Group sympathizer Leslie D. Weatherhead: “Psychiatry and Christianity are not incompatible; rather, they supplement each other.”127 Like Weatherhead, Templeton believed that psychiatry and psychology pointed to the problem; Christianity alone provided the solution. Templeton’s services in the 1950s, like his Youth for Christ rallies a decade earlier, made conversion the highest priority. But the conversion message was now presented, not during the main service, but in the after-meeting which followed. Furthermore, a call to “accept Christ” was withheld until the after-meeting of the fourth

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evening and the services which remained. Templeton’s tract, Steps to Christian Commitment – How To Become A Christian, outlined the conversion message that he preached. Templeton noted that “we have all sinned.” We cannot forgive ourselves of our sins because “we have sinned not only against ourselves but against others and against Almighty God.” What was needed was repentance, which was not so much sorrow for past misdeeds as a “change of mind” and a change in behaviour. Through the atonement, which Templeton explained as “Christ becoming one with us and entering into our judgement and we becoming one with Him and thus entering His oneness with the Father,” men and women could live in a close relationship with God. The tract concluded with a prayer by which the reader could profess a conversion.128 Templeton believed that by instructing his audiences in Christian living (instead of immediately rushing them into a conversion) he was being true to the Christian faith. In many ways his approach was reminiscent of that of Crossley and Hunter. He viewed conversion as the beginning of a life lived in close communion with God; it was necessary as a first step. Fundamentalists who preached conversion only, said Templeton, considered their work finished at the point where it had just begun. What was needed was to build on the conversion, to instruct recent converts on how to live in a manner that would please God and benefit humanity. “What is the purpose of religion – more specifically, the Christian religion?” he asked his audiences. “In plain, unmistakable English, avoiding theological terminology, the purpose of the Christian religion is to make good people – genuine, one-hundred-cents-on-the-dollar, transparently good people.”129 Templeton’s approach was attuned to the prevalent notion that Christianity should be practical. The utility of religion had been central to Protestant evangelism since the late nineteenth-century revivals of Crossley and Hunter. If popular religion was to compete in an open marketplace, it had to address directly the hopes and fears of Canadians. After citing the problems, evangelists offered religion as the solution. They were convinced that only conversion, the beginning of a life lived with God, could provide fulfillment. Like evangelists before him, Templeton spoke to the everyday concerns of his audience. In Vancouver in 1954, for instance, he opened a service with the promise that he was “just going to make suggestions as to how to live our lives in these troubled times.”130 In the 1950s, he tapped into Canadians’ realization that material objects did not provide spiritual fulfillment. The post-war economic boom had created the first generally affluent generation in Canadian history. The average wage of a male factory worker in Canada rose from

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$30.47 per week at the end of the war to $64.96 in 1957. Industry shifted from war materials to consumer goods that found eager buyers across the continent. The first shopping centre opened a year after the conclusion of hostilities, a fitting symbol for the post-war era. By 1961, there was one car for every four Canadians. As a result, the United States and Canada boasted the highest and second highest living standards in the world, respectively. And advertisements promoted the virtues of indulgence, promising that the purchase of goods and services would bring Canadians personal happiness.131 What some historians have called an “orgy of spending”132 may be attributed to advertisers’ promises of therapeutic self-realization. But it can also be explained as the result of pent-up demand. The scarcity of consumer goods during World War II prevented Canadians from buying much except Victory Bonds, and at the conclusion of the war many could draw on significant savings. Young people had postponed marriage during the 1940s, and at war’s end they started families. They also started buying what they thought their families required: cars were needed to transport father to work; radios and televisions entertained children, giving mother a temporary respite; suburban homes offered space that was safe and comfortable. The purchase of consumer goods was, in part, an attempt to grasp the stability that had eluded this generation for so long. In 1940 sociologist Leonard Marsh noted that “the hazards of [Depression-era] unemployment had extended far through the ranks of the modern middle class, particularly among the younger generation.” Marsh observed that it was “not hard to understand the desire for security, one of the fundamental ‘drives’ of the middle classes.”133 By the 1950s, many prosperous Canadians had bought nearly everything they had ever hoped for, yet something was missing. Suburban homes offered privacy, but brought a sense of isolation. Shopping malls made purchasing convenient, but at the cost of neighbourhood store familiarity. Television offered easy entertainment, but led to the decline of community gatherings and celebrations. Many suffered from feelings of disconnectedness, emotions which Betty Friedan, in her 1963 book, The Feminist Mystique, called “the problem that has no name.”134 Templeton sensed this uneasiness. In “Chrome-Plated Chaos,” one of his most popular sermons, he observed that “we have knowledge but not wisdom, houses but not homes, speed but not direction and medicines but not health … We are lost!” Some were afflicted with Cold War anxieties of an atomic holocaust. They had achieved a measure of stability only to realize that it could all vanish with the push of a button. Others were overwhelmed by the daily challenges of marriage and child-rearing. In response, churches

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took on some of the characteristics of a therapeutic agency. So did Templeton’s evangelism. He believed that those who professed a conversion in his services would wake up the next morning to the problems and anxieties that had afflicted them the night before. Conversion was not the heal-all that fundamentalists such as Oswald J. Smith promised. For this reason Templeton preached a “total gospel” addressed to all aspects of life. In a style reminiscent of Hugh Crossley, whose Practical Talks on Important Themes ranged from personal hygiene to Bible study, Templeton was as likely to offer suggestions on how to be a better parent as he was to outline how to pray. The words to Templeton’s song, “True Happiness,” summed up his approach in a nutshell: “In these four things we all may find true happiness; Someone to love, a child to hold, a home to build and God.”135 Templeton’s message was also designed to engage the minds of his listeners. To many who attended his meetings, old-time evangelism was anti-intellectual and thus irrelevant to modern society. Templeton’s contemporary terminology, his approach to devotional life, and his openness to modern science resonated among English-speaking Canadians who believed that modern ways of understanding the world could be incorporated into religious belief. In the course of his five- year evangelistic career with the United Church, thousands attended his after-meetings and accepted a Christ who seemed to speak to all facets of their lives. The God that they believed in also demanded their service. Central to Templeton’s evangelism in the 1950s was an emphasis on individual efforts at social reform. There was more to being a Christian than walking down the aisle, professing conversion, and shaking the evangelist’s hand, Templeton contended. Christians needed to love the Lord their God, but also their neighbours as themselves. The emphasis on social reform was further evidence that Templeton had embraced a more liberal Protestantism.136 Christian living, he told an audience in Vancouver, “consists of a life in service to God, because the test of love is service. ‘It is the nature of love to serve.’”137 Quoting Jesus, he counselled his listeners to “let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”138 To some, this was real religion. Thousands attended Templeton’s services, professed a conversion, and promised to live a life of good works. But others were not convinced. After attending one of Templeton’s meetings, a fundamentalist critic sniffed that “No one will have to worry about clutching the seats to keep out of Hell with his ‘kindergarten’ preaching.”139

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The Method: “The quiet techniques of modern salesmanship” Critics may have been similarly unimpressed with the methods Templeton used to communicate his gospel. The tone of the meetings had changed significantly. During the 1940s, Templeton had appealed to young men and women by presenting himself as an upbeat master of ceremonies, presiding over a religious extravaganza that ended like an old-fashioned revival service. In the 1950s he packaged his evangelism in a manner that would appeal to more refined sensibilities. He presided over calm, dignified meetings where people were encouraged to live more like Christ. Having adjusted his message to the times, he distanced his methods from contemporary youth entertainment. Many of the trappings of his Youth for Christ days were discarded – these would have repelled rather than attracted the audiences that Templeton was targeting. The image of Youth for Christ celebrity Gil Dodds racing around a track for God’s greater glory was now embarrassing to Templeton, as it was to his audiences. The “Manual for a Templeton Christian Mission” that was distributed before each campaign informed supporters that, during the services to come, “the excesses that have made evangelism suspect in the past are avoided.”140 The tone at the opening service of each of his missions was almost apologetic. “I’m not going to do anything sensational – jump around or gyrate,” he announced at the first meeting of his Vancouver mission in 1954, “nor will I make any prophecies like the end of the world.”141 The evangelist’s style, “so mannerly and so reasonable,”142 a reporter observed, helped set the tone for the services. Seeking an explanation for his style, a journalist in the United States credited “the discipline of his Canadian background of reserve and poise.”143 Perhaps. But Templeton’s church sponsors, rather than his country of origin, were more responsible for the mood of the meetings. The mainstream establishment had returned to mass evangelism in the 1950s, but on its own terms. These churches preferred meetings with a refined sensibility in keeping with their position in respectable society. The music at Templeton’s services reflected the change in tone. Gone was the all-female octet, the brass band, and the four-year-old belting out “Negro spirituals,” all characteristic of his Youth for Christ rallies. The only instruments at his United Church meetings were the piano and organ, and the only voices were those of a local church choir or Connie Templeton. Connie had followed her husband into his new style of evangelism but now limited herself to classical pieces like Malotte’s “The Lord’s Prayer.” The choir also stuck to highbrow works by composers such as Handel and Bach.144

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The service ended on a different note as well. In the 1950s, Templeton was especially critical of the emotional appeals that concluded many revival meetings. At the close of the nineteenth century, Crossley and Hunter had asked their audiences to consider the wishes of their dead loved ones, but invoking “the memory of a beloved parent (’Tell Mother I’ll Be There’)” had no place in evangelism, said Templeton. “No coercion of any kind is employed. No one is ‘pressured’ into decision,” he reassured the readers of his “Manual for a Templeton Christian Mission.”145 “When I closed the meeting I didn’t bring people forward down the aisle,” he recalled many years later. “I closed the meeting. If you would like to know more, stay behind. Well now, the crowd is leaving, the pressure is to go. If you stay against the crowd leaving, you wanted to know, and that’s why I did it that way.”146 There were no hymns or prolonged pleas. Templeton outlined the steps to conversion and offered a prayer that penitents could repeat. Each received some helpful literature and signed a card in duplicate, so a copy could be sent to the minister of the church with which the convert was, or would like to be, associated. “A conscientious follow-up” was key to “the permanent effectiveness of the method,” noted Templeton. “Anything short of this not only does a disservice to the church and the world but will eventually produce the same reaction to irresponsibility that befell mass evangelism, losing it to the main stream of the church for more than a generation.”147 Like Frank Buchman, Templeton attempted to draw those who had previously avoided evangelism. He too was keen to set himself apart from the variety-show revivals of the past and the “Elmer Gantrys” who led them. Many of these men, he told an audience in Winnipeg in 1952, “had been motivated by sentiments other than a genuine faith.”148 Templeton accepted a modest salary to distinguish himself from these hucksters of religion and publicized the fact at each mission.149 But Templeton did not stop commercializing evangelism; rather, he commercialized it in a different way. Sinclair Lewis’s fictional Elmer Gantry had drawn on forms of mass entertainment; Templeton and his mainstream colleagues used middle-class commercial culture. There was no pacing back and forth in Templeton’s services, noted one reporter, just “the quiet techniques of modern salesmanship.”150 Templeton presented audiences with a figure with which they were eminently comfortable: the modern salesman. Not the slick proprietor of a fly-by-night operation, but the trusted owner of an established business. And his “quiet techniques of modern salesmanship” resonated with his target audience, who were enjoying the biggest economic expansion of modern times.

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To wartime youth, Templeton had presented Christianity as a “thrilling adventure,” a message underscored by the spotlights and jazz. The evangelist still believed that life with Christ could be adventurous, but he recognized that the men and women in his audience were focused on the day-to-day concerns of work and family. To postwar suburbanites, he marketed the gospel as a central component of modern living. One convert enthused that Templeton’s “comparative simplicity of approach, his natural presentation of Christianity as a commodity as necessary to life as salt, and his overwhelming belief in its practical value ‘sold’ me.”151 In a society that revolved around spending, religion was a “commodity.” But this purchase was not “fun”; instead, it had “practical value.” At the same time, the evangelist made clear, it was more than a dishwasher, and this is where religion differed from other commodities – it was set apart by its purpose. Canadians could get by without the latest in consumer goods, but they could not find true life in this world or the next without conversion. For this observer, as for many others, it was a message that “sold.” The message also found a warm response among the leaders of the mainstream churches, who threw their considerable weight behind Templeton’s revival endeavours. As the principal evangelist for the National Council of Churches and the United Church, Templeton was associated with the largest denominations in the United States and Canada. His institutional affiliation was reminiscent of that of Crossley and Hunter, who led revivals on behalf of the influential Methodist churches, which took care of the planning. Templeton’s connection with these churches altered his evangelism in a variety of ways. He was no longer free to market evangelism as he pleased – he now had an organization to answer to. At the same time, he was not required to sell evangelism as he had in the 1940s. During his Youth for Christ days, the style of Templeton’s services was as much a matter of necessity as choice – he was forced to use the strategies of the marketplace to draw as many young people as possible to his meetings. In the 1950s, he could rely on the significant resources of the well-to-do mainstream denominations to bring people to his revivals. The National Council and the United Church had been working together on evangelism since the mid-1920s. In the 1930s, James Mutchmor had begun to form links between his Board of Evangelism and Social Service and the evangelism departments of the Federal (later National) Council of Churches and the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. As a result, the evangelism of Canada’s largest Protestant church was very much American; many of the

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speakers, most of the strategies, and virtually all of the literature originated in the United States.152 It did not seem to matter. Canadians responded to this message in a manner similar to that of their American counterparts. Mainstream denominational boundaries were similarly disregarded. In an attempt to return to the city-wide crusades of an earlier era, the United Church invited other denominations to take part in the services. In preparation for the 1955 St. Catharines campaign, for example, the local Salvation Army, Baptist, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Christian Reformed churches were contacted. Many from these assemblies attended the meetings or joined the choir; the Baptists were reported to have been especially cooperative. None, however, shared in the planning.153 Preparations for the mission began a year in advance. In contrast to Templeton’s Youth for Christ services, these evangelistic campaigns were organized by the host churches. At the same time, Templeton guided the planning through his “Manual for a Templeton Christian Mission” which provided detailed instructions concerning every aspect of the mission. While ministers coordinated much of the activity, lay people were given the most prominent roles. Early on, Mutchmor realized “that our church’s lay leaders were far more venturesome than interested clergy.” Running a church and organizing a revival were two entirely different tasks, requiring altogether distinct sets of skills. If a minister wanted to introduce a change in his church, he had to develop a coordinated strategy. The idea needed to be introduced incrementally, influential leaders brought onside, and the membership persuaded.154 Evangelistic campaigns, in contrast, demanded entrepreneurial ambition. Organizers had to dream big and implement decisions quickly in order to make it all happen. Convinced that lay men and women were willing to take risks and were more confident in the results than clergy, Mutchmor arranged organizing committees so that ministers were outnumbered by a ratio of three to one.155 As a result, correspondence with other churches, local businesses, or the press was printed under the letterheads of well-known firms run by involved lay leaders. Local businesses often donated necessary items like organs and bought advertisements in the program.156 The campaign began before Templeton arrived. The National Council of Churches had developed a marketing blitz approach to evangelism which also proved effective in English Canada. At the very least, the mission was preceded by a week of visitation evangelism by ministers and lay people who notified local residents of the meetings to come. In some cases, communities were saturated with a program of

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home visitations, bible classes, young people’s events, women’s rallies, radio programs, prayer vigils, and a pastors’ conference, all for the sake of the Templeton Mission. In a manner similar to the campaigns of Crossley and Hunter, these services were community events. The organizers were convinced that a broad base of support was necessary for the campaign to succeed.157 The preparation was thorough, and all was in place by the time Templeton arrived. His first act was to meet with the local ministers. Some evangelists had developed a reputation for drawing audiences at the expense of local churches; Oswald Smith, for instance, had been denounced by T.T. Shields as a sheep stealer. Templeton reassured the clergy that his meetings were intended to build up, not compete with their assemblies. Later in each campaign, Templeton led “Schools of Evangelism” for clergy interested in following the mission with programs of evangelism in their own church. As a result, smaller campaigns often spun off from the main mission.158 The campaign was two weeks long, packed with at least three services each weekday: a women’s bible study, a non-evangelistic noon meeting held in a downtown theatre (designed, said Templeton, to “apply the Christian gospel to everyday living”159), and the evening service. Templeton preached the same sermons in the same order in each campaign. The evening meetings were usually held in the local arena. While most in the audience had a connection to a church, it was hoped that non-churchgoers would be drawn to a “neutral venue.” A large audience also made the work of the evangelist easier. “There’s something about the stadium-sized audience,” observed Templeton, “that impresses people and makes them receptive – and the anonymity of individuals in a big crowd allows them to drop their poses and be their natural selves. Their guard is down, and they are ready to listen to something that may be out of their usual way of thinking.”160 There were other benefits to stadiums. It was not always easy to get good coverage, but large crowds had a way of drawing the press. Templeton’s familiarity with the inner workings of a newspaper gave him an advantage in this regard. As evangelists had done since the nineteenth century, Templeton assembled a press kit that was sent to the local dailies in advance of his arrival. He also gave detailed instructions on the subject to the organizing committees, urging their leaders “to go to the top men in each newspaper office one month before the Mission is to begin.” They should explain the purpose of the mission and should emphasize that it was “not a ‘fly-by-night’ campaign but is conducted on a high level. This is important,”161 Templeton stressed.

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Templeton was particularly aggressive in his approach to radio. He counselled the publicity committee to make “every effort” to have him “interviewed on the most prominent programs.” Publicity formed the biggest expenditure in the manual’s “Suggested Budget,” and significant expenditures went to advertisements in the local newspaper.162 These full-page ads were far removed from those Templeton had used during his Youth for Christ days, though the evangelist’s marketing philosophy had not changed. Templeton knew from market researchers that his advertising had to be targeted to a segment of the population. And he had learned from social scientists that he had to put the needs of his audience ahead of his evangelistic product. But the audience had changed, and a new marketing style was required to effectively reach Canadian adults. Where Templeton’s Youth for Christ advertisements had been crowded with promises of the “thrilling” services to come, his United Church newspaper ads adopted an air of easy informality. The information conveyed by the ad could have been communicated in a space half the size, but the vast white space seemed to suggest that those sponsoring the revival were not at all concerned about cost. This was no hard sell – Templeton preferred to supply readers with the information that they required. A portrait of the evangelist, sometimes accompanied by Connie in concert gown and pearls, assured readers that these services would be conducted by the kind of people any Canadian would welcome as neighbours.163 Making Men Respond The dignified tone of Templeton’s meetings may have been a disappointment to journalists. Reports of his Youth for Christ services had focused on the spectacle; in the 1950s there was little of this to retell. But while Templeton’s United Church campaigns might not make for exciting copy, they gained the support of many editors. Front-page articles with large photographs were printed on the day of Templeton’s opening services – his connection to the influential and respected United Church must have been a factor in winning over editors and publishers. Interviews were also common, giving the evangelist the opportunity to communicate his purposes directly. As the campaign progressed, however, the attention often declined. For example, during the first week of Templeton’s 1952 Winnipeg campaign, reports of the meetings were placed on page 3 of the Winnipeg Free Press. During the second week, campaign articles were shortened and moved back. Still, editorial writers wished Templeton well and urged readers to attend the services. In St. Catharines in the

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fall of 1955, for instance, the newspaper coverage was so good that the organizing committee decided to cut its paid advertisements.164 In this city, the press coverage mirrored the size of the crowds. That was the case in other centres as well. Opening night in Vancouver in 1954 drew 7,000 and significant attention from the newspapers. Thereafter, the crowds declined to an average of 4,000; however, at the closing service 11,000 packed the Forum and overflowed into the nearby Garden at Exhibition Park. In total, 95,000 attended the Vancouver campaign.165 Templeton’s measured approach to evangelism seems to have appealed to local politicians, who frequently attended the opening meeting (though none appear to have professed a conversion at Templeton’s meetings). In Winnipeg in 1952, the premier and lieutenantgovernor sat on the platform, adding further prestige to the services and signifying by their presence that the campaign was an important event. It would have impressed those in the audience, no doubt. Most of them were adults, though youth were often well represented.166 As in the 1940s, the sermons these audiences heard rarely addressed women directly. Female biblical characters were never mentioned. Women’s involvement in the evangelistic campaigns was similarly limited. The role of “The Women’s Committee,” according to the manual, was confined to planning the women’s Bible study, running the nursery, and praying.167 This indeed was revivalism “in tune with the times.” Despite women’s significant contribution to the war effort, they had been encouraged to retreat to their new suburban homes as soon as the hostilities ceased. Shortly after Armistice, the government had closed its daycare centres and many women had been pushed out of their positions in factories and offices to make room for returning veterans. One historian points out that polls taken during the war indicated that an “overwhelming majority of Canadians in 1943 saw women’s place to be in the home, wartime or not … The very association of women with the military touched off fear of an impending breakdown in the sexual division of labour … fear that women were invading male territory and becoming too independent.”168 Some women defied convention and worked, usually after their children were settled in school. Yet there were few professionals in their ranks, and women’s wages were substantially lower than those of their male counterparts. Opportunities for leadership in the church were similarly limited. Women made up the majority of church members but held few positions of responsibility outside their auxiliaries and missionary societies. Many women attended Templeton’s revival meetings, but their presence in the audience was

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not matched on the platform. In this way, at least, Canadian revivalism had changed little from the late nineteenth century.169 Men were the real focus of these campaigns. In sermons reminiscent of his Youth for Christ days, Templeton focused on men in an attempt to bolster the conventional, family-centred morality advocated by political and church leaders of the period. The Oxford Group had appealed to middle- and upper-class businessmen with an understated masculinity. Race-car drivers like Reggie Holmes had nothing to prove – his courage had never been in doubt. Templeton, in contrast, preached an aggressive Christian manliness. In “The Bigger They Come,” one of Templeton’s staple campaign messages in the 1950s, he urged men to come onto the Lord’s side and to join a circle of strong, forceful characters that included such biblical heroes as Samson, Peter, and John. To be a follower of God was to be like Samson, “a standout in any day … There he goes, walking with the imperious assurance of the man who knows he has no peer: unshorn hair, bulging biceps, bronzed and radiantly healthy, knowing the favour of both God and man.” Peter was no different from the rest of us, Templeton told his listeners. He had his faults, yet “Peter stands above them a giant for God, a great and thrilling man of action and color and excitement who stirs the imagination and demands one’s respect.” Though the apostle John was often depicted by artists “as an effeminate dreamer,” nothing could be further from the truth. “This man is no sentimental dreamer, no aesthetic, soft-eyed sissy,” countered Templeton. “John is a strongwilled, hot-tempered, positive personality … A dominant, affectionate, aggressive man … a man of great courage and deep loyalty. Quite a man!” Men in the audience could be just like John if they chose to live for Christ. “John is not a miracle,” said Templeton, “he is a man: but a man plus God! And any one of us can be that.”170

conclusion Through the early 1950s, English-speaking Canadian men and women responded enthusiastically to this message. In many ways, it was the same gospel that Crossley and Hunter, Oswald J. Smith, and Frank Buchman had preached. Repentance, conversion, and holy living had been their central message, and it was Templeton’s primary thrust as well. Templeton’s marketing strategy was also strikingly similar to that of his predecessors. Templeton was determined to remain “in tune with the times,” and the times and the target audience had changed. In the 1940s he had appealed to young people

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by drawing on the style of radio and mimicking a patriotic pageant. In the 1950s he drew mainstream churchgoers by speaking in the voice of a respectable businessman. Jazz and flashy soloists were replaced by classical music and robed choirs. By commodifying religion, first in one way, and then in another, Templeton continued to appeal to English-speaking Canadians in changing socio-economic circumstances. That appeal, however, exacted a personal toll on Templeton. By the middle of the 1950s, the evangelist’s enthusiasm for religious revivals was waning and his intellectual doubts were re-emerging. Templeton recognized that his departure from evangelism would hurt those who had been touched by his ministry, but he could not continue. In 1955 he stopped leading evangelistic campaigns. In an interview with the Globe and Mail in 1958 he observed that “if you’re going to preach effectively, you have to have conviction. My convictions as to some aspects of Christian doctrine became diluted with doubt … feeling as I do, I could not go on in the ministry.”171 In 1956 he resigned as director of evangelism for the Presbyterian Church of the usa. The following year his marriage with Connie ended. Templeton packed his bags, drove out of New York City, and headed towards Toronto, his future altogether uncertain. His mother, who had nurtured his faith, died of cancer in 1957, not knowing that her son had left the ministry.172 Templeton’s departure may have been hastened by changes in the mainstream church establishment. He would have had difficulty continuing as the National Council of Churches’ evangelist even if his convictions had not stood in the way. After the retirement in 1955 of Jesse Bader, the executive secretary of the National Council’s Department of Evangelism, the budget was slashed by 40 per cent. The mainstream American churches that made up the National Council diverted their funds to other endeavours. In the United Church of Canada, Mutchmor continued to organize revivals into the late 1950s. However, the emphasis on personal conversion that had taken hold in the United Church was gradually replaced by an emphasis on education and social Christianity. As the new decade dawned, issues like the new curriculum of Christian education received increased attention, and evangelistic campaigns slipped into the background.173 In the 1950s Canada’s churches had taken in thousands of new members, and evangelism had been a priority. Now they had to minister to them, and education and social services dominated the agenda. Furthermore, many within these mainstream churches were no longer convinced of the efficacy of mass evangelism. Leading the critics was Templeton. In a series of lectures he gave at the liberal Union Theological Seminary, published in 1957 under the title

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Evangelism for Tomorrow, Templeton urged Christians to “rethink” the practice of mass evangelism. He was especially critical of his friend and former colleague Billy Graham. According to Templeton, Graham had a “deficient understanding of the nature of sin, a strong tendency to present conversion as a transaction, a tendency to ally God with America … and a rather naive conviction that revival will resolve the world’s great issues.” Templeton sided with the “many churchmen” who, he observed, had “grave doubts about the ultimate value of [Graham’s] contribution.”174 Templeton knew whereof he spoke – his indictment of Graham was in many ways an apology for his own evangelistic work. But the voice in which he criticized his colleagues was not that of an evangelist, but of a churchman. Denominations and congregations defined themselves by their doctrine. In the 1950s, the mainstream churches ruminated on the “nature of sin,” extending it from the personal to the social realm and pointing out the need for structural change. But for evangelists such as Graham, “sin” was a catchall for everything that the men and women in his audience wanted to leave behind. They came to his revival services as individuals, not members of a collective, and they wanted answers to their problems. Graham promised that Jesus would “wash those sins away,” providing a fresh start in life. While that might have been “a deficient understanding of sin” for Templeton, it was enough for Graham’s converts. The evangelist appealed to a mass audience, consisting of people from a variety of church backgrounds, and some with no connection to a church at all. Churches spoke their own languages in ways that distinguished them from other churches and society in general. In the absence of this discourse, evangelists had to find words and phrases that would resonate with their audiences. In the commercialized North America of the 1950s, the language of the marketplace prevailed. If Billy Graham, to use Templeton’s words, had “a strong tendency to present conversion as a transaction,” it was because that was how his contemporaries understood the world and their relationship with the divine: they gave their heart to God, and He gave them eternal life in Heaven. By commercializing religion in this manner, had Graham distorted it? Perhaps, he might have answered, but no more than any other preacher who had tried to make a two-thousand-year-old message resonate with contemporary life. Furthermore, Graham might have responded, Templeton’s approach to evangelism in the 1950s was no better – it was just commercial in a different way. Templeton had left behind the Sinatra-style bow ties and music of contemporary entertainment. But in place of these he had substituted a well-managed,

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efficient revival operation, run by businessmen who spent the bulk of the budget on advertising. In response to the charge that he was of the “conviction that revival will resolve the world’s great issues,” Graham no doubt would have pleaded guilty. Churches might have multiple purposes, but revivals were focused first and foremost on conversion. The men who had led evangelistic campaigns in Canada since the late 1800s had given themselves to this work because they were convinced that through revivals they could change the world. In asking Graham and his colleagues to “rethink evangelism,” Templeton was in good company. It was undoubtedly true that “many churchmen” had “grave doubts about the ultimate value” of Graham’s evangelism. But the august company that attended Templeton’s lectures at Union Theological Seminary, or read Evangelism for Tomorrow, were not the targets of Graham’s campaigns, his allies answered. Templeton and other critics, said Sherwood Wirt, had become so carried away with their theological sophistication that they had completely missed the needs of the “man on the street.” During Graham’s 1957 New York campaign, Christianity Today quoted a “New York cabbie” who said that Graham’s speech was “the first time I ever knew what a preacher was talking about.”175 Similar statements had been made about Templeton while he had been an evangelist. In the late 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, his abilities as a communicator – this time as a journalist – would be the source of comment. A year after departing evangelism, Templeton was “born again” as a television journalist and won the 1958 Maurice Rosenfeld award as the “brightest freshman in Canadian television by a vote of his fellow performers in the industry.”176 He later served as the executive managing editor of the Toronto Star, and briefly as the editor-in-chief of Maclean’s magazine. He hosted a radio program with Pierre Berton and wrote several best-selling books. He even took a run at the leadership of the Liberal Party of Ontario in the fall of 1964, with an eye to the premier’s office. His inventive presentation of his political message drew hundreds of party delegates to his meetings, but most were already committed to his rival, and Templeton’s bid ended in failure. Templeton had embarked on these new career paths, leaving his life as an evangelist behind, because he no longer believed in the message that he was preaching. To succeed as an evangelist required unwavering conviction in the necessity of conversion, and Templeton had lost that confidence. In addition, Templeton no longer had the necessary support. To be effective as an itinerant evangelist required the backing of men and women willing to devote countless hours to

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planning and hosting the meetings. In the late 1950s, United Church leaders, ministers, and members were shifting their attention away from mass evangelism and toward other objectives. In contrast, Templeton’s friend Billy Graham retained complete confidence in his message and enjoyed continued support for his work. As a result, Graham soldiered on in his mission to spread the gospel through any and every possible means.

Epilogue

On June 25, 1998, more than a century after Crossley and Hunter had held their campaign in Canada’s capital, evangelist Billy Graham stood before a crowd of twenty thousand assembled at Ottawa’s Corel Centre. According to an article in the Ottawa Citizen, “Mr. Graham said the ills of our world are explained by the fact that humans have broken God’s laws, and the solution is to turn to Him and ask for forgiveness and divine help in bettering our way of living.” “Don’t leave this place until you make that commitment [to following Jesus],” Graham told the crowd, “because this may be your only chance. This is your moment.” According to the Citizen, 1,500 responded that first night to the evangelistic appeal and “came forward” to signal their desire to make a commitment to follow Christ.1 Graham’s goal during the four-day Ottawa “Mission” was to bring men and women into a relationship with the divine. “We are all sinners,” he told the crowds each evening, “and sin keeps us from God.” By asking the divine to forgive their sins, and then professing a conversion, his listeners could begin anew, living each day with God at their side. To some, the message was “old-fashioned.” The same might have been said of Graham himself: seventy-nine years old and surrounded by a revival team that included a master of ceremonies in his seventies and an eighty-nine-year-old soloist. Yet the methods with which the aged evangelist and his colleagues communicated their message were unabashedly up-to-date. The venue for the campaign was the Corel Centre, the national capital’s new arena and entertainment complex. The advertising

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campaign for the mission was cutting edge: for instance, on the “sex” pages of an Ottawa newspaper, where strip clubs and sex workers pitched their services, mission organizers placed advertisements which boldly declared that “Jesus will love you for free.” The “Concert for the Next Generation,” a Friday evening musical extravaganza for young people, featured top-flight pop musicians and testimonies by famous athletes, including an Olympic gold medalist. After “Rockin’ in the name of the Lord,” as the Citizen put it, two thousand young people professed a conversion at the Friday meeting. When the four day campaign ended, 107,000 had attended and 9,000 had “come forward” to signal their desire to “accept Christ as their Saviour.”2 Billy Graham’s revival message and methods were not unusual. Since the late nineteenth century evangelists have commodified Protestant revivalism in order to draw Canadians to their message of repentance, conversion, and renewal. The evangelists have adapted their methods to the commercial culture of the day in an attempt to make their basic gospel message appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Billy Graham, like Hugh Crossley and John Hunter, Oswald J. Smith, Frank Buchman, and Charles Templeton before him, underwent a conversion experience as a young man. Conversion changed the lives of each of them, bringing them into what they were convinced was a passionate personal relationship with God. Eager to share the joy and peace that they felt, they dedicated themselves to triggering this transformative experience in the lives of others. Smith could have been speaking for all of the evangelists when he noted that ultimately, “it is [this] experience that counts.”3 Through conversion, the evangelists attempted to bring their listeners face-toface with the eternal questions of life and death, forcing them to contemplate their obligations to family, church, community, and country. By changing enough individuals, the evangelists hoped to transform the world. Time was short. The evangelists felt a sense of urgency about communicating their message, and in an attempt to reach the largest number of people in the most efficient manner, these entrepreneurs in religion borrowed the secrets and strategies of merchants of commercial culture or pioneered their own innovations. Each adopted a marketing strategy suited to his specific audience. Templeton, for example, attracted young people in the 1940s with fast-paced programs that included jazz and radio-style interviews. His shift to older audiences necessitated a change in marketing strategy. In the 1950s he appealed to adults through dignified services featuring classical music and references to Albert Einstein and Aldous Huxley.

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The evangelist stood alone on centre stage. But behind the scenes, countless helpers worked diligently to ensure that everything followed the script. They planned for months, and sometimes years, to make the dream of revival a reality. Though largely hidden from view, these volunteers played a pivotal role in guaranteeing that the campaigns were a success. In most cases, the press also lent a helping hand. Publishers knew what was good for business, and articles about religion sold more newspapers. But their support of the evangelists was more than a simple business decision; while editors might not agree with all aspects of the evangelists’ message, most shared their goal of creating a society of respectable men and women. On those occasions when the press could not be counted on to get the word out, the evangelists forced its hand by creating controversies. Any coverage, they were convinced, was better than no coverage at all. With free publicity came increased audiences, and more potential converts. A sizeable number of those who attended these revivals were already affiliated with a church. Conversion was the evangelical sacrament – a rite of passage that many Canadian Protestants expected to undergo – and revivals provided them with the opportunity. At the same time, the evangelists made explicit overtures to those who did not participate in church life. Men were frequently the target of their appeals, and the evangelists went out of their way to show them that religion was not just for “the ladies.” This focus on male converts was not ubiquitous, however – the evangelists’ audiences were diverse. Crossley and Hunter targeted all classes, while those who followed were narrower in their aims. They differed on other matters as well. Some worked on behalf of the mainstream churches, others built their own religious communities. Their institutional connections had a profound effect on their theology: those evangelists connected to mainstream Protestantism, including Crossley and Hunter, Buchman, and Templeton during the last half of his career, embraced a liberal approach to modern intellectual insights. In contrast, Smith rejected these ideas outright. Appealing in a multitude of ways to different audiences at various times, these evangelists cannot be lumped together as members of a single, pan-Canadian “revival movement.” Nor did they constitute the defining element of Canadian Protestantism. The evangelists sometimes looked to the United States for inspiration, and saw a Christianity that was marked by competition and led by entrepreneurs in religion such as themselves. When they returned their gaze to Canada, they saw instead a Protestantism that was defined by a general consensus and dominated by a handful of large denominations. In the United States, revivalists such as D.L. Moody in

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the late nineteenth century or Billy Graham in the mid-twentieth century were hailed as “Mr. Protestant.” If the title had been contested in Canada in the 1950s, the winner would have been the moderator of the United Church rather than Charles Templeton. While none of the evangelists was able to dictate the terms of Canadian Protestant religiosity, their influence was nevertheless profound. By adapting their messages and methods to reflect their time and place, they ensured that Protestant Christianity remained relevant to Canadians who were experiencing changing socio-economic circumstances. In this way, each blazed a trail for those who would follow. They also laid the foundations for present-day churches that continue to engage contemporary life – congregations that on Sunday mornings sing hymns to a beat laid down by drums and electric guitar, and the rest of the week help organize outreach endeavours such as the 1998 Graham “Mission.” This success came at a price, however. Incorporating into religion a number of the strategies of the marketplace, the evangelists introduced some of its values as well, the effects of which are only becoming apparent many years after the fact. Data gleaned from the 2001 Census indicates that only one in five Canadians attend “religious services on a weekly basis,” and public opinion polls commissioned several years earlier revealed that four in five were convinced that “you don’t have to go to church to be a good Christian.” At the same time, however, opinion polls have indicated that nine out of ten Canadians believe in God, and two-thirds subscribe to the belief that Jesus Christ was the divine Son of God, a core doctrine of traditional Christianity. It appears that while the vast majority of Canadians no longer attend church, many still hold some measure of traditional Christian belief. As the pioneering work of sociologist Reginald Bibby has made clear, religion has become a matter of personal choice for most Canadians. Bibby has called this “religion à la carte,” an approach to faith in which people pick and choose among various religious offerings, finding beliefs and practices that meet their personal needs, but avoiding a commitment to a specific religious community. As might be expected, this do-it-yourself religion has not always resulted in a profound understanding of some aspects of Christian doctrine. Religious choice, not theological consistency, has become the guiding principle.4 What does our contemporary religious scene have to do with revivalism in Canada from the late nineteenth century to the 1950s? We may begin by observing that the study of churches, including leadership, attendance, and membership, gives only a partial picture of the state of Protestant belief. We need to look beyond the churches

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to understand more fully the manner in which religion has had an impact on Canadians. But the connection between revivals in the past and religion in the present is more intimate than that. The core message of Crossley and Hunter, Smith, Buchman, and Templeton was that the experience of conversion – a personal encounter with the divine – was essential to salvation. After meeting God in this way, a sinner was forever changed into a saint. The evangelists were frequently critical of those who expected to enter the Kingdom of Heaven by virtue of their church involvement. In fact, at times the revivalists seemed to say that the churches were more of a problem than a solution. To Smith and Buchman, for instance, the mainstream dominations’ emphasis on institutional life, rather than soul-saving, had resulted in a loss of faith in Canada. Sometimes, staying away from church was deemed to be more virtuous than attending. Smith, for instance, encouraged his followers to “tune in” to his services via radio from the comfort of their living rooms, so that the seats in his auditorium would be available to legitimate sinners. By embracing new forms of communication, such as radio, and by crafting books, hymnals, magazines, and newsletters, these evangelists created resources through which Canadians could access the divine, channels to God that were not necessarily routed through a church community. Each of these resources underscored the need for conversion, and this constant emphasis came at a cost. Revivals were not conducive to deep thought – neither the message nor the format would allow for it. In packaging religion in the wrappings of commercial culture, the evangelists papered over many of Protestantism’s hard edges. This did not necessarily mean that the true meaning of Christianity – however defined – was lost. But, having appropriated the strategies of the marketplace, the evangelists were limited by them. As a result, conversion sometimes sounded less like a life-altering encounter with the divine and more like a simple business agreement, with mutual obligations on both parties. The introduction of this kind of terminology into matters of faith may not have strengthened Canadian Protestantism, but it did not necessarily erode it, either – the language of exchange has been used to characterize encounters between the divine and humanity since Yahweh first entered into covenant with the ancient Hebrew people. The evangelists would have argued, moreover, that the message of conversion, while borrowing the language of exchange, was intended to enable the converted to rise above and see beyond the bounds of the commercial culture that, even then, engulfed them. At its core, their Christianity formed a critique of earthly priorities and rewards.

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Again and again they declared that the only thing that mattered, in this life and the next, was a person’s relationship with the divine, and her efforts to bring others into that relationship. And for evangelists attempting to respond to the needs of Canadians living in an increasingly commercialized culture, the choices were limited. The revivalists refused to wait for sinners to come to them in search of answers to their religious questions. They wanted to get the message out, and that meant marketing the gospel. They did not have the option of becoming part of an established religious denomination, like the Church of England, supported by the state and distanced from the marketplace. Nor was there any point in withdrawing altogether from the surrounding commercial culture, like the Mennonites; few Canadians would follow. Instead, in an attempt to make Christianity relevant to everyday life, the evangelists borrowed from their surroundings. In the process, they helped sow the seeds that would later bloom into an individualistic Christianity with few connections to religious institutions. Whether the result is a flower or a weed is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. What is certain is that the marketing of religion continues in the present, in revival meetings led by evangelists and in new modes, as religious leaders find innovative ways to communicate their message. Sensitive to the decline of institutional commitment, yet aware of the apparent continuity of religious belief, entrepreneurs in religion are inventing novel methods to further the gospel that require no obligations to a specific church. Soon after the World Wide Web was launched, the cover of Time announced “Jesus Online,” and noted that culturally sensitive religious communities which “fill their services with rock ’n’ roll [and] recovery counselling” were making “increasing use of computer communications technologies” like the Internet in an effort to share their message.5 The conservative evangelical television ministry of Canadian David Mainse, based on a folksy talk-show format, continues to grow and expand. And, as was evident in Ottawa in 1998, Billy Graham was still appealing to vast crowds by mixing a traditional message of salvation with the latest in marketing strategies. Graham’s methods of advertising offer just one example of the aggressive approach to marketing being taken by many Christian organizations at the turn of the twenty-first century. As a 1999 article in an advertising journal noted, both liberal and conservative religious communities are hiring professional agencies to help them market the gospel. Not everyone is impressed with the arrangement, of course. Some have been openly critical, for instance, of the billboards featuring the Ten Commandments written on two stones and

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the slogan: “For fast, fast, fast relief take two tablets.” The press officer to the Bishop of Birmingham (Great Britain) defended this advertisement. “We don’t do these campaigns to shock people,” she noted, “but to appeal to as wide an audience as possible – people who don’t have the foggiest ideas of what church is about.”6 Closer to home, a Toronto Globe and Mail article referred to another advertising campaign promoting the Bible as “the latest sign of the commercialism sweeping the Christian world.”7 But, as the preceding pages have shown, popular religious leaders have been marketing the gospel in innovative ways in Canada since at least the late 1800s. In an attempt to reach “as wide an audience as possible” with their message of conversion, evangelists have unapologetically and imaginatively drawn on the strategies of contemporary merchants of commercial culture. That was the secret to the success of Crossley and Hunter, Smith, Buchman, and Templeton. In this way, these entrepreneurs in religion made Protestant Christianity meaningful to ordinary Canadians. As a result of their efforts, Protestant Christianity continues to engage modernity into our own time.

Notes

introduction 1 United Church of Canada, Victoria University Archives, John Edwin Hunter Fonds, Box 1, Scrapbook, 53. The scrapbook, a collection of newspaper clippings compiled by Hunter, contains articles describing their various revivals. Many of these articles have no date, location, or title. To access the material, page references to the scrapbook are given. See Hamilton Spectator, 19 December 1889, 3 for another contemporary observation of the resemblance of Crossley and Hunter’s services to local theatrical shows. 2 For brief summaries of the careers of Booth and Barrett, see Bordman, The Oxford Companion to American Theatre, 55–6; 92–3. 3 For more on the qualities of church congregations, see Mullin and Richey, eds., Reimagining Denominationalism, especially the essays by Ammerman and Mullin; Wind and Lewis, eds., American Congregations, Volume 2, especially the contribution of Warner; Marty, “The Congregation as a Culture.” 4 Historians Mark Noll, George Rawlyk, and David Bebbington trace the genesis of “evangelicalism” to the eighteenth century. During this period, English-speaking Protestantism entered a new era, and out of the religious awakenings of revivalists such as George Whitefield and the various movements which followed came the creation of a distinct set of emphases. Religious expression varied, and often differences were more apparent than similarities, yet these movements contributed to an extremely loose and ultimately pervasive body of

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Notes to pages 5–7 beliefs. Instead of strict doctrine, this “evangelicalism” was characterized by four points: a stress on conversion, “an energetic, individualistic approach to religious duties and social involvement,” “a focus on Christ’s redeeming work as the heart of essential Christianity,” and “a reliance on the Bible as ultimate religious authority.” Noll et al, eds., Evangelicalism, 6. At times, certain aspects of this loose package of beliefs have been emphasized, while others have been neglected. Scholars argue that this ability to shift according to cultural emphases and take advantage of societal changes has enabled evangelicalism to become one of the dominant streams of nineteenthand twentieth-century Canadian Protestantism. French, “The Evangelical Creed in Canada,” 15–35; Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century. The focus of this study, it should be emphasized, is revivalism, not “evangelicals” or “evangelicalism.” On those occasions when I use these terms, I am following the four-point definition of Noll, Rawlyk, and Bebbington. Though Crossley and Hunter, Smith, Buchman, and Templeton may have disagreed on the order of importance of three of these four aspects of “evangelicalism,” each would have agreed that conversion was their ultimate goal. Rawlyk, Ravished by the Spirit. See Rawlyk, Wrapped Up in God, 139 and Rawlyk, The Canada Fire, xvi. Friesen, Citizens and Nation, 107–63. Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion, 5. Evidence abounds of restructuring in the twenty-first century. The emergence of “megachurches” in major American urban centres serves as the latest illustration of a historical constant. See Kaminer, “Welcome to the Next Church.” Moore, Selling God, 65. Karl Marx began his analysis of capitalism by focusing on the “commodity,” which he defined as a product that had been repackaged so that it could be sold in the marketplace. To translate Marx’s notion into the present-day, we might say that a piece of music performed on a piano at home is a song, while the same piece recorded on a compact disc, and sold at a store, is a “commodity.” According to Marx, the genius of the capitalist system lay in its ability to invest goods with powers that distanced the goods from the labour of the workers that had created them. Marx, Capital, 125, 163, 729–30. Crossley and Hunter, Smith, Buchman, and Templeton did not “commodify” religion so that it could be exchanged for something else in the marketplace. Nor did they share Marx’s conviction that religion was a commodity that had been created to mask a real system of power relations. The evangelists did, however, repackage

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religion in forms borrowed from commercial culture, and I point to this aspect of Marx’s notion in my use of the term “commodification.” 11 Other historians have documented how specific evangelists responded to the rise of a commercial culture in the United States, a century before its impact would be felt in Canada. Eighteenthcentury evangelist George Whitefield, according to historian Harry Stout, was the first religious entrepreneur of note in the United States. Like the evangelists who would follow him, Whitefield restructured religion so that it could compete with secular culture, while stressing the traditional emphasis on sorrow for sin, humility before God, and redemption through Christ. Stout, The Divine Dramatist. For more on Whitefield’s use of merchandising techniques, see Lambert, “Pedlar in Divinity.” Focusing specifically on the decades following the American Revolution, Nathan Hatch argues that late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century evangelists such as Lorenzo Dow were “entrepreneurs in religion” who “perceive[d] a market to be exploited” and pioneered radical innovations. Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity, 57. According to Hatch, during the heady days of the new Republic, evangelists like Dow and Francis Asbury adapted to republican ideology by democratizing Christianity, with significant success. Through the use of lay preachers, folk music, and popular publications, they restructured religion to make it accessible to many. As Kathryn Teresa Long points out, American religious leaders commercialized religion again during the “Businessmen’s Revival” of 1857– 58. Long, The Revival of 1857–1858. Historians have documented American evangelists’ use of commercial culture through the twentieth century as well. The latest biographer of Billy Sunday, the evangelist who became famous in the World War I era, notes that Sunday was a religious showman. At the same time, he contends that the evangelist “did more than anyone else in the first half of the twentieth century to keep biblical Christianity vital.” Dorsett, Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America, 156. Canadian-born evangelist “Sister” Aimee Semple McPherson, who rose to prominence in Los Angeles in the 1920s, offers another example of an entrepreneurial evangelist. McPherson’s achievements, Edith Blumhofer points out, were a result of her success in combining religion with entertainment, an achievement that landed her a listing as a top attraction in tour pamphlets of the American southwest. McPherson “was simply using every means at her disposal to accomplish her task. She saw no reason for the church to lag behind the world in marketing its message.” Blumhofer, Aimee Semple McPherson, Everybody’s Sister, 6, 16. And in the years

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Notes to pages 7–8 immediately following the second World War, Youth for Christ evangelists including Billy Graham copied the strategies and program format of popular entertainers, successfully combining born-again religion with Hollywood style. Carpenter, Revive Us Again. David Marshall arrives at this conclusion in his assessment of the revivalism of both Crossley and Hunter and the Oxford Group. Marshall, Secularizing the Faith, 89–98 and 205–27. Ammerman, “Organized Religion in a Voluntaristic Society,” 213. Marks, Revivals and Roller Rinks. The separation of church and state had been the result of a series of events, beginning with Lord Durham’s 1839 “Report on Canada,” in which the former high commissioner and governor-general had recommended the abolition of the clergy reserves – portions of land that had supported the clerical establishment. In Ontario, the Conservative administration of John A. Macdonald passed a bill in 1854 effectively ending the clergy reserves. Ontarians recognized that from this point on, in the words of historian John Webster Grant, “the state had no business in the sanctuaries of the province.” The precedent was set, and its effects would be felt in every province outside Quebec. Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 143. According to sociologist David Martin, “at certain crucial periods in their history, societies acquire a particular frame and subsequent events persistently move within the limits of that frame. There is a contour of dykes and canals set up at a turning point in history and the flow of events then runs according to that contour.” Martin, A General Theory of Secularization, 15, 27. Van Die, “‘The Double Vision,’” 254–6; Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 68–9. Mulvany, Toronto: Past and Present, 147. After surveying the lives of various colourful social reformers, Ramsay Cook concludes that “the religious crisis provoked by Darwinian science and the historical criticism of the bible led religious people to attempt to salvage Christianity by transforming it into an essentially social religion.” By the early decades of the twentieth century, Cook argues, traditional Protestant belief had been replaced by modernist sociology. Cook, The Regenerators, 4. In a similar vein, in A Disciplined Intelligence, A.B. McKillop examines the writings of several professors in Canadian universities and concludes that rational inquiry and Darwin’s naturalistic science helped bring about the decline of traditional Christianity in the 1880s. Brian Fraser, in his study of six progressive Presbyterian leaders, describes how influential churchmen were able to adjust the evangelical piety of an earlier era to fit the exigencies of a new age. Fraser,

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The Social Uplifters. This was also the case, Marguerite Van Die points out, for Nathanael Burwash, the Methodist theologian and Chancellor of Victoria University. Coupling doctrinal conservatism with an openness to change, Burwash kept his Christianity relevant to the times. An Evangelical Mind. Similarly, Michael Gauvreau’s focus on Methodist and Presbyterian theologians and ministers has led him to conclude that church leaders remained flexible and open to new ideas into the 1920s. Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century, 7. Along with Nancy Christie, Gauvreau has extended his thesis; the example of several leaders of the United Church of Canada, Gauvreau and Christie argue, shows evidence of evangelical continuity within a rapidly changing social environment into the 1940s. Gauvreau and Christie, A Full-Orbed Christianity. 21 In his introduction to Twentieth-Century Shapers of American Popular Religion, Charles Lippy points out that, as a result of a lack of attention from scholars, a generally accepted and concise definition of “popular religion” is hard to come by. Two different approaches to formulating a suitable definition have been made. In Popular Religion in America: Symbolic Change and the Modernization Process in Historical Perspective, Peter Williams has suggested that movements of popular religion adhere to beliefs that are transmitted through channels other than official colleges or seminaries, emphasize the presence of God in the earthly realm, and exist apart from established religious groups. Alternately, in “Popular Religion,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion 11, Charles H. Long has argued that the “popular” in “popular religion” “is concerned with a mode of transmission.” Forms of religion may be defined as “popular,” according to Long, when they are diffused over mass media, emphasizing experience rather than content. To my mind, a more useful definition of “popular religion” can be arrived at by placing religion within the context of culture. In his definition of “popular culture,” theorist Raymond Williams defines “popular” as “well-liked” or “widely favoured,” denoting an attempt to gain favour, a meaning that was entrenched by the early nineteenth century. Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, 236–8. In a similar vein, George Lipsitz sees “popular culture” as engaging in active and familiar processes and emphasizing a sense of familiarity, so that an audience can appropriate it easily. He approvingly cites French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, for whom popular forms “satisfy the taste for and sense of revelry, the free speaking and hearty laughter which liberate by setting the social world head over heels, overturning conventions and proprieties.” Lipsitz, Time Passages, 15. Both Williams’s and Lipsitz’s definitions of “popular culture” can be appropriated for the study of “popular religion” as expressed in

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Notes to pages 13–20 revivalism in Canada. Crossley and Hunter, Smith, Buchman, and Templeton were purveyors of a “popular religion” that relied for its success on the use of commercial cultural forms that were both “familiar” and “well-liked.”

chapter one 1 Kingston Daily British Whig, 23 September 1889, 1. 2 United Church of Canada [ucc], Victoria University Archives [vua], John Edwin Hunter Fonds [jehf], Box 1. 3 Ibid.; Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 3 March 1888, 3. 4 For a brief examination of the ministerial course of study at Victoria College, see Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 257. 5 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1. 6 Ibid.; Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 3 March 1888, 3. 7 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1; Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 3 March 1888, 3. 8 Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 3 March 1888, 3. 9 Monod, Store Wars, 103. 10 Santink, Timothy Eaton and the Rise of His Department Store, 90–118. 11 Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 203–10; Westfall, Two Worlds, 142. For an insightful analysis of nineteenth-century Protestant church architecture, see Ibid., 126–158. 12 Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 194–202. 13 Cited in MacNutt, “The 1880s,” 75. 14 E. Brooks Holifield describes the rise of what he calls “social congregations” in “Toward a History of American Congregations,” 39–40. Harry Stout and Catherine Brekus observe a similar late nineteenth-century shift toward the institutional church in their study of Center Church, New Haven, in “A New England Congregation: Center Church, New Haven, 1638–1989,” 78. Jay P. Dolan describes the professionalization of leaders of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish congregations in “Patterns of Leadership in the Congregation,” 237. 15 Quoted in Airhart, Serving the Present Age, 25. 16 Quoted in ibid, 3. Van Die, “‘The Marks of a Genuine Revival’,” 547. 17 Frank, Less Than Conquerors, 170. 18 Crouse, “American Revivalists, the Press, and Popular Religion in Canada,” 26. For the debate among Methodists concerning the efficacy of revivals see Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 211–38. 19 Van Die, “‘The Double Vision,’” 258. 20 Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 181–2; Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 216. 21 Bliss, Right Honourable Men, 6. 22 Quoted in Lamb, Bridging the Years, 182. 23 Christian Guardian, 29 February 1888.

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24 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1. In his correspondence, which was largely devoted to political matters, Macdonald makes no reference to the event. National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, John A. Macdonald Papers, M.F. 1085. 25 For instance, see Hunter’s comments during an interview in Winnipeg. ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 65. The scrapbook, a collection of newspaper clippings compiled by Hunter, contains articles describing their various revivals. Many of these articles have no date, location, or title. To access the material, page references to the scrapbook are given. 26 Ibid., 21. In addition to their Canadian revivals, Crossley and Hunter led evangelistic meetings throughout the United States. The Scrapbook includes several clippings taken from American newspapers reporting the evangelists’ campaigns. 27 For Thorold, see Marks, Revivals and Roller Rinks, 202. The aftermath of the Windsor revival is related in ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 14. Changes in Kingston are summarized in the Daily British Whig, 6 November 1889, 1. 28 Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, 25. 29 Crossley’s sermons varied little between 1884 and 1910. His “Perfect Love” message, delivered to an audience in Port Hope in 1887 (ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 19) was the same as that given to an audience in Belleville in 1908. (Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 16 March 1908, 7) Similarly, Crossley’s order of sermons remained unchanged. In 1908, the evangelists opened the campaign in Belleville with a lesson expanding on Jesus’ miracle of feeding the five thousand with a few loaves and fishes. (Ibid., 3 March 1908, 7) In 1888 he had reserved that sermon for the first Wednesday. The next message extolled St. Paul’s willingness to die for his God. (Ibid., 8 March 1888, 3; 9 March 1888, 3) It followed the miracle sermon in 1908 too. (Ibid., 4 March 1908, 7) 30 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, “The obituary of Reverend John E. Hunter.” 31 Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 224. 32 Crossley, Practical Talks, 150. 33 Ibid., 268–77. 34 Quoted in Westfall, Two Worlds, 163–4. 35 Crossley, Practical Talks, 16. 36 Quoted in Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, 366. 37 Christian Guardian, 8 June 1887, 360. American’s response to Darwinism and Biblical criticism are the focus of Szasz, The Divided Mind of Protestant America. For details of the heresy trials of Canadian Methodist George C. Workman and Presbyterian John Campbell, see

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Notes to pages 25–7 Marshall, Secularizing the Faith, 76–80. The response of mainstream church leaders to Darwinism and Biblical criticism is discussed in Airhart, Serving the Present Age, 25, 54. Nathanael Burwash’s accommodation of new ideas is recounted in Van Die, An Evangelical Mind, Chapters 2 and 4. For a sampling of the religious press see Pittman, “Darwinism and Evolution.” Dillenberger and Welch, Protestant Christianity Interpreted Through its Development, 215–17. ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 102; Crossley, Practical Talks, 141. Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century. Crossley held fast to the doctrine of Biblical infallibility. In a chapter titled “Doubt and Scepticism,” Crossley began a list of “great and sure antidotes for doubt” with “first, take God’s infallible Word as the ground of your unfaltering faith.” Crossley, Practical Talks, 139. For insight into the career and thought of leading spiritualist Richard Maurice Bucke, see Cook, The Regenerators, Chapter 6. ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 103. Kingston Daily British Whig, 30 October 1889, 1. Van Die, “Margaret Burwash, 1842–1923,” 79. For rates of child death in Montreal, see Copp, The Anatomy of Poverty, 93. ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 44. Moody also used stories of children dying to stir the hearts of his listeners. See Crouse, “American Revivalists, the Press, and Popular Religion in Canada,” 60–1. Butler, Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling. Many Methodists professing conversion but now seeking sanctification followed Phoebe Palmer’s instructions to “place all upon the altar” and claim the spiritual promise of Matthew 23:19 – that the “altar” sanctified the “gift” and cleansed the Christian from any remaining sin. According to Palmer, this “altar theology” was a “shorter way” to holiness than the lifelong process proposed by others. Airhart, Serving the Present Age, 22. Airhart, “Ordering a New Nation,” 109. A similar preoccupation with holiness was evident in the United States. See Wacker, “The Holy Spirit and the Spirit of the Age in American Protestantism”; Fea, “Power from on High in an Age of Ecclesiastical Impotence,” 28. The Keswick approach to sanctification grew out of several conferences arranged by American Presbyterians Hannah Whitall Smith, her husband Robert Pearsall Smith, and William Boardman. While in England in 1873 the trio had organized a series of meetings for the promotion of holiness. As interest grew, the conferences were relocated to the village of Keswick, in the Lake District. As a result of the influence of esteemed Anglican clergyman H. W. Webb-Peploe, the notion of the “suppression” of sin, rather than its eradication, was

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pushed to the fore. The result of the daily filling of the Holy Spirit, according to Keswick thought, was a life empowered for effective service in witnessing and mission work. D.L. Moody, who had experienced an intense filling of the Spirit, incorporated Keswick theology into his sermons and organized Keswick-style conferences featuring British Keswick teachers. Dayton, The Theological Roots of Pentecostalism, 105. Several of Moody’s successors, including C.I. Scofield and Reuben Torrey, placed special emphasis on the practical results of a “Spirit-filled life.” In their view, action was the need of the day. They attempted to shake what they viewed to be a torpid North American church out of its ennui and into empowered service. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 79–80. For more on Keswick holiness, see Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism, 100–8 and Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 72–80. Airhart, Serving the Present Age, 52–3.; Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 211. Following his ordination to the Methodist ministry as a conference evangelist in 1887, Horner purchased a huge tent and took his message to the fields. Success came instantaneously, at the expense of revivalists like Crossley and Hunter. His emphasis on “entire sanctification” distinguished Horner from the more mainstream Methodists. So too did the “prostrations” (falling to the ground) of those under the influence of the Holy Spirit, the simultaneous praying aloud, the laughter, and the general noise that accompanied his tent meetings. But the emotionalism that propelled him to fame among residents of the Ottawa Valley and its nearby cities proved to be his undoing with the respectable middle- and upper-class Methodist Church establishment. They were clearly embarrassed by Horner’s displays and frustrated by his reluctance to submit to ecclesiastical authority. In 1894 he was deposed from the ministry, then expelled from the Methodist Church. Following his dismissal, Horner organized his flock into a separate denomination. Clark, Church and Sect, 401, 418; Ross, “Ralph Cecil Horner.” Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 16 March 1908, 7. Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 170. Quoted in Armstrong and Nelles, The Revenge of the Methodist Bicycle Company, 6 Airhart, Serving the Present Age, 24. For an example of the Christian Guardian’s views on dancing, see “Facts about Dancing,” 12 January 1887, 6. Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 11 March 1908, 3. Crossley, Practical Talks. Quoted in Wagner, Adversaries of Dance, 202. Lears, No Place of Grace, 13.

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Notes to pages 30–4 Crossley, Practical Talks on Important Themes, 168. ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 72, 99. Crossley, Practical Talks on Important Themes, 298. Quoted in O’Dell, “Theatrical Events in Kingston,” 271; Conolly, “The Methodist Church and the Theatre in Canada.” Davies, “The Nineteenth-Century Repertoire,” 117. Lipsitz, Time Passages, 9. For Lipsitz, the theatre played a central role in the shift from a producer to consumer culture. The theatre’s “greatest long-term significance lay in shaping the psychic and material preconditions for Americans to shift from a Victorian industrial economy to a hedonistic consumer-commodity economy.” (9) Methodist objections went back to the early eighteenth century and John Wesley. While students at Oxford, Wesley and his friend George Whitefield had read and attended dramas and plays. Horace Walpole observed that Wesley was “as evidently an actor” as contemporary stage celebrity David Garrick. Conolly, “The Methodist Church and the Theatre in Canada,” 55. Similar comments were made of Whitefield. In The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelism, historian Harry Stout describes Whitefield as an “actorpreacher” who competed in a marketplace environment by making his preaching both edifying and entertaining. In the years that followed, however, Wesley and Whitefield developed a hatred for the theatre, and more than a century and a half later Canadian Methodists maintained their views. Conolly, “The Methodist Church and the Theatre in Canada,” 59–61. The debate was reported in the Toronto Globe, 23 February 1899. Crossley, Practical Talks on Important Themes, 180. Quoted in O’Dell, “The Class Character of Church Participation,” 202; Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 7 March 1888, 3; 9 March 1888, 3; 17 March 1888, 3. Quoted in Lamb, Bridging the Years, 174. For more on the rebuilding of Bridge Street Methodist, see 162–9. Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 5 April 1888, 3. Quoted in Christian Guardian, 2 February 1887, 68. Hunter seemed especially adept at reading the mood of an audience. In one obituary he was remembered as “a genius in his ability to read human nature. For this reason he could measure the condition of a meeting and could rapidly meet the conditions he found.” (ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Obituary File) ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 23, 16. Ibid., 72, 23. Ibid., 21.

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77 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Ernest Crossley Hunter and Frank Chamberlain, “Old-Time Evangelism,” United Church Observer, 24. 78 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 32, 21. 79 Christian Guardian, 17 October 1888, 660. 80 Hunter, Pay-Pray-Prosper. 81 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, John Edwin Hunter, “The Heavenly Railroad.” 82 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 113. 83 Crossley, ed., Songs of Salvation, 52–3. 84 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Crossley Hunter, “Old-Time Evangelism,” 26. 85 For the similarities between evangelical church and theatre design in the late nineteenth century, see Kilde, When Church Became Theatre, 117–21. 86 Lamb, Bridging the Years, 184. 87 References were made to the project, but no record of it exists. 88 “This book,” Crossley noted in the preface, “may be regarded as a souvenir volume of our evangelistic work … The author, that he might be the more personal and helpful, has endeavoured to write as he would speak face to face.” Crossley, Practical Talks on Important Themes, Preface. 89 The reporter capitalized the last six words. ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 100. 90 Ibid., 115. 91 Ibid., 39, 113. 92 N.A., “A History of the Congregation of Central United Church, St. Thomas, Ont.,” 8. 93 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1, Scrapbook, 104. 94 Ibid., 111, 53. Crossley, a bachelor, lived with Hunter and his family when the evangelists were not leading revivals. 95 An interview for the Winnipeg Sun revealed that “A wife is picked out for Crossley in almost every place they go – so says Mr. Hunter – but he escapes from the net.” Ibid., 63. In a letter published in the Winnipeg Free Press Crossley announced: “Lest any person should say as one did, ‘I don’t think Mr Crossley thinks of his wife, for I never heard him speak of her,’ I might say that I am still enjoying single blessedness.” Ibid., 114. 96 Ibid., 110. 97 Kingston Daily British Whig, 6 November 1889, 1. 98 Robertson, The Chicago Revival, Chapter 3; Moore, Selling God, 184–6. 99 ucc, vua, Sydenham Street Methodist Church, Kingston, Official Board Minutes, 24 February 1887; 5 May 1887; 25 February 1889. 100 Gerald Moran makes this point in “Sinners are Turned into Saints.” According to Moran, it was the efforts of ministers that ensured

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Notes to pages 41–2 George Whitefield’s success. The awakening attributed to the English evangelist marked the end of a period of growth in Connecticut churches. A century and a half later, in Ontario cities like Kingston, the efforts of ministers were equally important. ucc, vua, Sydenham Street Methodist Church, Kingston, Board of Trustee Minutes, 2 September 1889. Kingston Daily British Whig, 23 September 1889, 1. Founded in Europe in 1846, the Evangelical Alliance quickly took root in English-speaking Canada. The Alliance organized conferences and campaigns to promote interdenominational fellowship and various outreach endeavours. Kingston Daily British Whig, 6 November 1889, 1. Crossley and Hunter often invited Roman Catholics to attend their services or to join the inter-church choir. It is doubtful many attended. Comprising a minority of the Canadian population, Roman Catholics exercised significantly less authority in Ontario society, a result of their relatively low social and economic standing. Catholics also had to endure occasional outbursts of anti-Catholicism, often the result of lectures by the likes of “Father Chiniquy,” a former priest turned Presbyterian who was determined to expose the apparently sordid underbelly of the “Romanist” church. Still, the invective of out-spoken populists like Chiniquy was far from normative. As Doris O’Dell has pointed out, the example of Belleville, Ontario illustrates that Protestants and Catholics often remained on good terms. Protestants in this city even donated funds for the building of a new Catholic church. O’Dell, “The Class Character of Church Participation in Late NineteenthCentury Belleville, Ontario,” Chapter 5. Kingston Daily British Whig, 6 November 1889, 1. Before the Kingston campaign, the Daily British Whig had announced that the evangelists “are paid the overplus from the nightly collections after the necessary expenses are met. At the close of the services a free will offering will be made.” Kingston Daily British Whig, 23 September 1889, 1. A more detailed account was given in the Belleville Daily Intelligencer at the close of the evangelists’ 1888 Belleville campaign. The Intelligencer noted that “the amount given the revivalists was $1,036.28 made up as follows: Balance of collection after paying expenses $610, offering on Monday evening $73.40, last night, $352.88.” Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 18 April 1888, 3. Not factored into this account was Crossley’s income from songbook sales, which must have been considerable. Two thousand copies of Songs of Salvation were sold in Belleville. Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 18 April 1888, 3. Evidence suggests that all expenses were borne by the evangelists. The Minutes of the various Boards at Sydenham Street Methodist

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contain no reference to disbursements to the evangelists. ucc, vua, Sydenham Street Methodist Church, Kingston, Board of Trustee Minutes, Official Board Minutes, 1886–1890. While considerable, the evangelists’ income was comparable to that of other speakers. The Board of Trustees at Sydenham Street Methodist was willing to pay Bishop John Heyl Vincent, the founder of the Oxford League, an American young people’s association, $100 to $150 to preach once and give a lecture at a special service in 1889. ucc, vua, Sydenham Street Methodist Church, Kingston, Board of Trustee Minutes, 6 November 1888. The Oxford League, organized under the aegis of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States in 1884, spawned the Epworth League in the Canadian Methodist Church. Throughout his career, Vincent worked actively for the sake of young people. In 1874, he had established the American Chautauqua Institute to promote Sunday School work. Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 379, 385. Crossley and Hunter’s income was high in comparison to the income of the host minister at Sydenham Street Methodist, Carson, who earned a salary of $2,000 per annum. It should be noted, however, that Carson’s housing would have been provided by the church, which was not the case for Crossley and Hunter. ucc, vua, Sydenham Street Methodist Church, Kingston, Official Board Minutes, 20 December 1889. ucc, vua, jehf, The Muskoka Sun, 26 August 1982, 4. Vipond, The Mass Media in Canada, 14. Rutherford, The Making of the Canadian Media, 30–1. Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 175. Quoted in Rutherford, A Victorian Authority, 172, 129. Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 31 March 1888, 3. For late nineteenth-century changes in Canadian advertising, see Johnston, Selling Themselves, 145–51. The Salvation Army’s marketing is described in Winston, Red Hot & Righteous, 25, 63. For a rare example of a Crossley and Hunter advertisement, see Hamilton Spectator, 30 November 1889, 4. For instance, see Cook, The Regenerators, 49–51. Hamilton Spectator, 11 November 1889, 3. Ibid., 11 December 1889, 6; 12 December 1889, 2; 17 December 1889, 1; 20 December 1889, 2. Ibid., 14 December 1889, 1; 17 December 1889, 6. Ibid., 20 December 1889, 6. Ibid., 21 December 1889, 6. Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 10 March 1888, 3. Marks, Revivals and Roller Rinks, 193. Marguerite Van Die points out that in Brantford, Ontario in 1881, 62 per cent of the adult population

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Notes to pages 47–51 was affiliated with a church. Van Die, “‘The Marks of a Genuine Revival,’” 556. According to surveys conducted by the Toronto Globe in 1882 and 1896, 45 per cent of respondents attended church at least once on Sunday. O’Dell, “The Class Character of Church Participation in Late Nineteenth-Century Belleville, Ontario,” 79; 551–2. Acadia University, Esther Clark Wright Archives, Eliakim Newcomb Archibald Papers, Diary of E. N. Archibald Typescript. Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 65; Clark, Church and Sect in Canada, 389–407. Quoted in N.A., “A History of the Congregation of Central United Church, St. Thomas, Ont.,” 6. Marks, Revivals and Roller Rinks, 192. For the attendance of workers at the 1888 Belleville campaign, see O’Dell, “The Class Character of Church Participation in Late Nineteenth-Century Belleville, Ontario.” See Van Die, “The Marks of a Genuine Revival,” especially 537–47, 559–61 and O’Dell, “The Class Character of Church Participation in Late Nineteenth-Century Belleville, Ontario.” For Hunter’s acknowledgment of Bowell, see Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 5 March 1888, 2. Crossley, Practical Talks on Important Themes, 206, 85. Quoted in Marks, Revivals and Roller Rinks, 196. Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 13 April 1888, 3. Historian Neil Semple notes that “between 1885 and 1900 at least twenty-five women led over three hundred revival services” in Canada. Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 219. There is no evidence that Crossley and Hunter, on any occasion, joined forces with these “lady evangelists.” Rotundo, “Body and Soul,” 23–30. Howell, “A Manly Sport”; Corrigan, Business of the Heart, 186–7. Marks, Revivals and Roller Rinks, 212. See also 81–91. For more on Kingsley, Hughes, and the origins of “muscular Christianity” see Putney, Muscular Christianity, 11–19. Crossley, Practical Talks on Important Themes, 197. Kingston Daily British Whig, 26 September 1889, 1. Foner, Reconstruction, 34. Brantford Expositor, 24 March1890. Belleville Daily Intelligencer, 12 March 1908, 2. Marks, Revivals and Roller Rinks, 211. For more on male associational life and ideals of respectable masculinity, see 107–39. Bliss, “‘Dyspepsia of the Mind’,” 215. See, for instance, the peaks that mark membership at Brockville’s Wall Street Methodist Church, and Belleville’s Bridge Street Methodist. Fryer et al., The Meaning of These Stones, 343–4; Lamb, Bridging the Years, 358.

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142 Revival converts removed from church rolls in the years following Thorold’s “Great Revival” were often working-class men. In contrast to female and middle-class male converts, many of these workers did not receive support at home for their new-found religious beliefs. Often, they were the only members of their families to profess conversion. Their middle-class counterparts, meanwhile, exited the revival service and entered sympathetic Christian homes. Marks, Revivals and Roller Rinks, 193, 203–4. 143 ucc, vua, jehf, Box 1. 144 See articles on Crossley’s campaign in Winnipeg in 1921: Winnipeg Free Press, 3 January 1921, 2; 10 January 1921, 10; 17 January 1921, 14; 24 January 1921, 5.

chapter two 1 Toronto Globe, 10 September 1928, 10. The church was initially named the “Cosmopolitan Tabernacle.” This was changed to “Metropolitan Tabernacle,” and finally, in 1933, to “The Peoples Church.” 2 Toronto Star, 8 September 1928, 21. 3 Scholars have not devoted significant attention to Smith’s career. David Elliott is the lone exception; he views Smith’s appropriation of commercial culture as detrimental to Canadian evangelicalism. In “Studies of Eight Canadian Fundamentalists,” he examines Smith through the lens of transnational fundamentalism, a movement Elliott openly disdains. “If anything,” he observes, “Smith helped create the shallowness of much of fundamentalism and so-called ‘evangelicalism’ which favoured quantity over quality. Religious entertainment replaced worship and their gospel … often lacked theological depth and a social emphasis.” (304) In contrast to the dearth of scholarly studies, popular biographies of Smith are numerous. Yet these hagiographies tell the reader little about the evangelist’s response to cultural change. Most notable is J. Edwin Orr’s Always Abounding! A Pen Sketch of Oswald J. Smith of Toronto. While serving as a chaplain during the Second World War, Orr received guidance from God that he should, in his own words, “become a historian of the great religious awakenings of the Nineteenth Century, and an eye-witness of the beginnings of the awakenings of the Twentieth Century.” Quoted in Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 78–80. Among his first subjects was Oswald Smith. A highly personal view of Smith, his book was published on the occasion of Smith’s fiftieth birthday and the celebration of his twenty-fifth year in ministry. Four decades later, Lois Neely’s Fire In His Bones, The Official Biography of Oswald J. Smith summed up Smith’s career as it drew to a

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Notes to pages 54–7 close. Drawing on interviews with Smith and accounts from his diary, the biography offered the evangelist’s view of his career from his perspective in the 1970s. Of all Smith’s biographers, Douglas Hall is most sensitive to Smith’s cultural context. In Not Made for Defeat, the Authorized Biography of Oswald J. Smith, Hall occasionally recognizes the ways in which Smith drew on cultural impulses to revitalize his evangelical work. Yet further study is needed to ascertain the ways in which Oswald Smith, a Canadian conservative Protestant leader in the 1920s and 1930s, attempted to draw on cultural impulses to attract central Canadians to his fundamentalist message. Ontario Bible College Archives [obca], Oswald J. Smith Papers [ojsp], Lois Neely, “The Last Interview.” obca, ojsp, “Billy Graham at Oswald Smith’s Diamond Jubilee,” The Peoples Magazine, Third Quarter, 1971. Neely, Fire In His Bones, 23–5. The 1906 Torrey and Alexander Toronto evangelistic campaign has been analyzed in Crouse, “American Revivalists, the Press, and Popular Religion in Canada, 1884–1914,” 128–90. For Torrey’s theology and evangelistic style, see Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 43–8. Smith, The Story of My Life and Ministry, 20. Quoted in Bliss, “Northern Wealth,” 4. Neatby, The Politics of Chaos, 8. McKay, “Debating Sexuality in Halifax, 1920,” 331–45. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism, 273–7. T.B.T.S. was an interdenominational school. Its purpose, according to the founders’ “Design,” was “the training of consecrated men and women as Sunday School Workers, as Pastors’ Assistants, and as City, Home and Foreign Missionaries.” Austin, “The Great Design,” 1–5. The school has undergone several name changes, from Toronto Bible Training School to Toronto Bible College to Ontario Bible College to Tyndale Bible College, as it is known today. See also Sawatsky, “Looking For That Blessed Hope,” 270 and Airhart, “Ordering a New Nation and Reordering Protestantism,” 119, 126. I use the term “conservative evangelical” to describe those Canadians and Americans who, in the decades preceding the First World War, protested the advances of new scientific and theological currents. The term “fundamentalist” began to be used in the 1920s. I use “fundamentalist” to describe those who subscribed to notions like Biblical literalism and dispensational premillennialism in the post World War I period. For the hazards of using “fundamentalist” to describe Canadians in the decades preceding the First World War, see Dochuk, “Redeeming the Time,” Conclusion.

Notes to pages 57–60

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13 See George Marsden’s definition of fundamentalism in Fundamentalism and American Culture, 4–7, 78, 215. In Training God’s Army, Virginia Lieson Brereton challenges Marsden’s definition on two fronts. Where Marsden emphasizes the “militancy” of fundamentalism, Brereton highlights the institutional affiliations and religious experiences of conservative evangelicals. Where Marsden focuses on Calvinists of the Reformed tradition, Brereton includes conservatives from the Wesleyan holiness tradition. (165–70) This latter point is also made by Donald Dayton. In The Theological Roots of Pentecostalism, Dayton points to the ways in which the Wesleyan holiness tradition influenced the fundamentalist movement. For rural-urban differences in Canada, see Ellis, “Gilboa to Ichabod,” and Ellis, “Social and Religious Factors in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Schism among Baptists in North America, 1895–1934”. 14 Between 1909 and 1915, three million copies of the Fundamentals were published. Szasz, The Divided Mind of Protestant America, 1880–1930, 78–80. 15 obca, ojsp, “Valedictory Address – Class of 1912, by Oswald J. Smith (April, 1912).” 16 Hall, Not Made for Defeat, 40. Neely, Fire In His Bones, 113. 17 Smith’s motives for attending Manitoba College are outlined in Hall, Not Made For Defeat, 85. For his experiences there see Neely, Fire In His Bones, 46–50. 18 Billy Graham Center Archives [bgca], Oswald J. Smith Papers [ojsp], Collection 322, Box 3, Folder 3. 19 Hall, Not Made For Defeat, 98. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 2, Folder 1, Program for “The Opening of Dale, Toronto’s Great Evangelistic Church.” 20 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Tape 67, Side 2, Daisy Smith Interview. Of Smith’s biographers, Neely is most sensitive to Daisy’s struggles as the wife of Oswald Smith. See also Evangeline, Daisy: The Fascinating Story of Daisy Smith. 21 See Neely’s account of these events in Fire In His Bones, Chapter 13. 22 In New Women for God, Canadian Presbyterian Women and India Missions, 1876–1914, Ruth Compton Brouwer has pointed out that Presbyterian missionaries in the early twentieth century focused more on social work than evangelism. 23 Quoted in Airhart, “Ordering a New Nation and Reordering Protestantism, 1867–1914,” 129. Finkel et al., History of the Canadian Peoples, 215. See also Granatstein et al., Nation: Canada Since Confederation, 337–70. 24 Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 83, 94. For an inhouse history of the Alliance, see Niklaus et al., All for Jesus. For the Alliance in Canada, see Reynolds, Footprints.

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Notes to pages 61–6

25 Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 45, 78–80, 126. See Merrill Dunlop’s comments, bgca, Merrill Dunlop Ephemera, Collection 50, Merrill Dunlop Interview, Tape 1. Rader was well known for, among other stunts, dramatizing his sermons with sound effects from his orchestra. 26 Reynolds, Footprints, 407. 27 Ibid., 396–400. 28 Blumhofer, Aimee Semple McPherson, Everybody’s Sister, 264. 29 Neely, Fire In His Bones, Chapters 27–8. 30 Ibid., 208–9. 31 Smith, The Story of My Life, 52. 32 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 8, Folder 10, The Word of Life 3:7 (October 1923). 33 Orr, Always Abounding!, 109–10. 34 Smith, The Enduement of Power, 80. 35 When this tract was originally written is unclear. The tract does not bear a publishing date. 36 Smith, Warning and Entreaty. obca, ojsp, Oswald Smith, “Five Things You Must Know.” 37 Ibid. 38 obca, ojsp, Robert D. Kalis, “The World’s Greatest Living Hymn Writer: An Interview with Dr. Oswald J. Smith,” 5. 39 Smith, Oswald Smith’s Best Songs, 3. For a summary of Smith’s musical accomplishments, see Ontario Bible College Archives, Oswald J. Smith Papers, Lois Neely, “The Last Interview.” 40 Smith, The Peoples Hymns, 86. 41 obca, ojsp, Kalis, “The World’s Greatest Living Hymn Writer,” 7. 42 Tamke, Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord, 42. 43 obca, ojsp, Oswald Smith, “Five Things You Must Know.” 44 Smith, The Man God Uses, 74, 75, 81. 45 Ostrander, “The Battery and the Windmill.” 46 Neely, Fire In His Bones, 28. Joel Carpenter ably summarizes Keswick theology in Revive Us Again, 81. 47 Smith, The Enduement of Power, 60. 48 bgca, oj sp, Collection 322, Box 10, Folder 4, “The Christian and the World.” 49 Abrams, Selling The Old-Time Religion, 18. 50 Smith, The Man God Uses, 18. 51 Jay Dolan points out that this trend was not limited to Protestantism. In the United States, Catholic parishes became “comprehensive parishes” and Jewish synagogues were transformed into “synagoguecentres,” offering a plethora of educational, recreational, social, and cultural activities. Dolan, “Patterns of Leadership in the Congregation.”

Notes to pages 67–70

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52 Darby’s ideas had been furthered in 1909 when a Bible annotated by Congregational minister C.I. Scofield had been published by Oxford University Press. A runaway best-seller from the beginning (that is still in print), the Scofield Reference Bible included references and footnotes in the margins and at the bottom of each page that were intended to help readers understand the meaning of books, chapters, and verses according to the dispensational premillennialist understanding of the Bible. Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, 97–100. The importance of dispensational premillennialism to fundamentalism has been underscored by Ernest Sandeen. In The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism 1800–1930, Sandeen argued that premillennialism, coupled with the notion of biblical infallibility, was the driving force behind the fundamentalist movement. (x-xv) See also Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, 86–90. Phyllis Airhart analyzes Darby’s influence on Canadian Methodism in Serving the Present Age, 40–1. 53 Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism, x-xv; Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming. Carpenter, Revive Us Again, Conclusion. 54 Kilde, When Church Became Theatre, 22. 55 Toronto Globe, 15 May 1922, 13, 14. 56 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 1, Folder 28, Alliance Tabernacle Reports. 57 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 2, File 8, “Atheism, Communism and Bolshevism.” 58 Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 184–7. 59 Szasz, The Divided Mind of Protestant America, 16–19, 29, 35–40, 130–4. 60 Orr, Always Abounding!, 109. 61 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 10, Folder 6, News of News, 1:1 (January 1921). 62 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 8, Folder 10, The Alliance World 3:8 (November 1923). 63 Reynolds, Footprints, xi, xii. 64 For an analysis of the impact of tuberculosis and other diseases in Montreal during in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century see Copp, The Anatomy of Poverty, 88–105. The first outbreak of the Spanish Flu occurred in Quebec in 1918; from there, the disease spread across the country. Schools and theatres were closed, public meetings were banned, and church services were cancelled. Those who ventured outside were ordered to wear masks. Janice P. Dickin McGinnis, “The Impact of Epidemic Influenza: Canada, 1918–1919,” 453–8. See also Pettigrew, The Silent Enemy. Historian T.J. Jackson Lears’ study of American culture has led him to observe that mental illness appeared to be on the rise in this

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69 70 71 72 73 74

75 76 77 78 79 80

Notes to pages 70–3 period: “‘nervous prostration’ or neurasthenia were shorthand terms for immobilizing depressions that plagued many among the urban bourgeoisie during the late nineteenth century and after.” For Lears, the period was marked “by an almost obsessive concern with psychic and physical health defined in sweeping terms.” Lears, “From Salvation to Self-Realization,” 7, 4. McGinnis, “The Impact of Epidemic Influenza: Canada, 1918–1919,” 471. Thompson and Seager, Canada 1922–1939: Decades of Discord, 60. Mullin, Miracles and the Modern Religious Imagination, 221–2. Ibid., 237. See also Blumhofer, Aimee Semple Mcpherson, Everybody’s Sister, 163–4. Mullin, Miracles and the Modern Religious Imagination, 224, 237–8, 248. “A sane, constructive health movement cannot be based upon the use of consecrated oil,” the authors of the report had argued. “The same may be said of a ‘gift of healing’ … no movement could be based upon that!” (248) Conservatives in the marginalized Pentecostal, fundamentalist, and holiness sects, which had promoted divine healing since the late nineteenth century, were delighted to hear that the Episcopal church was studying the matter. Numbers and Sawyer, “Medicine and Christianity in the Modern World,” 152–3. According to noted Pentecostal F.F. Bosworth, the Episcopal report was evidence that “the most godly and able teachers of the Church” supported divine healing. Mullin, Miracles and the Modern Religious Imagination, 238–9. Smith, The Great Physician, 10. See the reports in the Toronto Star, beginning 18 April 1921, 22. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 10, Folder 6, News of News, 1:5 (May 1921). Blumhofer, Aimee Semple Mcpherson, Everybody’s Sister, 151–2. Smith, The Great Physician, 105–6. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 10, Folder 6, News of News 1:3 (March 1921). Smith explains how his vision was healed in Smith, The Great Physician, 122–8. The reports from subsequent healing campaigns hosted by Smith can be found in Toronto Star, 6 May 1922, 11 and 30 September 1922, 11. Smith, The Great Physician, 108–10. Reynolds, Footprints, 387. For MacPherson’s experience, see Blumhofer, Aimee Semple McPherson, Everybody’s Sister, 163–4. Smith, The Great Physician, 111. Smith, Back to Pentecost. Toronto Star, 8 September 1928, 21. Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, 46, 101–2. Canadian’s fascination with the end-times continues to this day. According to a 1993 Angus

Notes to pages 73–6

81 82

83 84

85 86 87 88

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

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Reid poll, three in ten Canadians expect that Jesus Christ will return soon to establish his Kingdom. Rawlyk, Is Jesus Your Personal Saviour?, 112–13. Smith, Antichrist and the Future, 63. In Naming the Antichrist, historian Robert Fuller argues that early twentieth-century fundamentalists who felt threatened by the new intellectual climate (which cast doubt upon their beliefs in an infallible Bible) responded by identifying modernists as Antichrists. (3, 114– 20, 128–9) According to Fuller, “the story of twentieth-century Antichrist is thus in large part the story of naming, dramatizing, and mythologizing the enemies of ultraconservative Protestantism.” (136) This was not the case for Smith. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 11, Folder 3, “Sees Mighty Roman Empire Revived With Mussolini as Head.” In Is the Antichrist At Hand? for instance, Smith pointed out that “of all those who have undertaken to work out the chronological forecast [for the appearance of the Antichrist], there is not one who sets any date beyond 1934.” He went on to note that “Mussolini seems to have the beast instincts suggested by the 13th Chapter of Revelation.” Smith, Is the Antichrist At Hand?, 17, 23. In World Problems in the Light of Prophecy, published in 1935, his predictions followed closely those made in Is the Antichrist At Hand?, except that all references to 1934 had been excised and Smith appeared to be less convinced that Mussolini was the Antichrist. In his Prophecy: What Lies Ahead? published in 1943, the chapter titled “Is the Antichrist At Hand?” had been shorn of all predictions. Smith, Is the Antichrist At Hand?, 12. Orr, Always Abounding!, 109. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Tape 10, “The End of the Age.” bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Tape 13, “Seven Missionary Mottoes.” For more on the missionary movement among North American fundamentalists, see Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 29. Toronto Star, 8 September 1928, 21. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 10, Folder 6, The News of News 1:8 (August-December 1921). Smith, Prophecy – What Lies Ahead?, “The Book of Revelation.” bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 1, Folder 15, Letter of Resignation to Alliance Tabernacle. Toronto Globe, 26 June 1929, 13. Smith, What God Hath Wrought!, 103. Austin, Saving China, 98. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Tape 13, “Seven Missionary Mottoes.”

216

Notes to pages 76–80

97 Quoted in Neely, Fire in His Bones, 232. 98 Hull, “Preparing the Peoples Church, Toronto for a Third Generation of Ministry,” 107, 114. For an admiring account of Smith’s mission extravaganzas, see Orr, Always Abounding!, 66–7. 99 Lower, Canadians in the Making, 424. For the impact of the car on Canadian life, see Davies, “‘Reckless Walking Must Be Discouraged’”. 100 Leiss, Kline, and Jhally, Social Communication in Advertising, 59, 95, 116; Schudson, Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion, 152. 101 Airhart, “Ordering a New Nation and Reordering Protestantism,” 115. 102 Quoted in Johnston, Selling Themselves, 166; see also 156–7 and Schudson, Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion, 171, 175. 103 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 11, Folder 14, The Tabernacle News (n.d.), “The World Beats a Path to Her Door.” 104 Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 77. 105 Quoted in Hall, Not Made For Defeat, 142. 106 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 2, File 10, “Rev. Oswald Smith founded evangelical Peoples Church.” These traits are evident in recordings of Smith’s sermons. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Phonographs, especially Phonograph 2, “The Supreme Task of the Church.” 107 My cursory survey of Toronto newspapers from 1916 to 1936 indicates that when evangelists such as Paul Rader led a series of services at Smith’s church, the meetings attracted more press attention than those led by Smith alone. When Smith and Rader held services consecutively, newspapers ignored Smith’s services and featured Rader’s services. Other guest evangelists received similar treatment. See, for instance, the front-page coverage given “Rev. Charles S. Morris, d.d., the colored orator of Virginia.” Toronto Globe, 17 July 1922, 1. The schedule for 1931 was as follows: “Mar 25 to Ap 8: Jubilee Colored Quartette; Ap 12 to Ap 26, Dr. Arthur Brown; May 3 to May 15: New N. Riddell; May 17 to May 31: Rev. Paul Rader; June 1 to June 7: Annual Missionary Convention; June 11 to June 14: Robert Harkness; June 14 to June 28: Rev. Dean C. Dutton, d.d.; July 5 to July 19; Rev. J.C. Kellogg; July 26 to Aug 9: Rev.. John W. Robertson; Aug 16 to Sept 2, Rev. A.P. Gouthey, d.d.; Sep 6 to Sep 20, Rev. Andrew Johnson, d.d., Ph.D.; Sept 27 to Oct 7, Rev. F. Lincicome; Sept 27 to Oct 7, Jubilee Singers; Oct 11 to Oct 25, Rev. Gerald B. Winrod; Nov 1 to Nov 15, Rev. Wm. B. Hogg, d.d.” bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 11, File 14, The Tabernacle News 10:3 (June 1931). 108 Smith, Can Organized Religion Survive?, 34.

Notes to pages 80–3

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109 bgca, William Sunday Papers, Collection 61, Box 16, Folder 19. Smith and Sunday’s secretary exchanged several letters attempting to arrange a suitable date for an evangelistic campaign. Sunday’s chief concern seemed to be the financial arrangements. See the handwritten note in the margin: “Terms okay, asked if he would divide the col. [collection] if I preached 2 times on Sundays.” Sunday never made it to Peoples Church – he died several months later. 110 Orr, Always Abounding! 115. 111 See Toronto Star, 17 October 1925, 22,; Toronto Telegram, 19 October 1925, 18. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 1, Folder 28, Alliance Tabernacle Reports. 112 McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, 422. 113 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 11, Folder 3, “Evangelical Services Planned Year Around.” For more on Rodheaver’s revival music, see Dorsett, Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America, 101. 114 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 1, Folder 21, “Madam Maria Karinskaya.” bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 1, Folder 10, Our Burden for Russia, Oswald J. Smith, “Madam Maria Karinskaya.” bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 11, Folder 3, “Russian Prima Donna Will Sing Here.” bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 10, Folder 8, The Canadian Alliance 4:7 (July 1924), “Farewell for Russia.” 115 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 11, Folder 12, The Tabernacle News 9:8 (August 1930). 116 Interview with Charles Templeton, 19 July 1996. I conducted several interviews with Templeton at his home in Toronto, on 19 July 1996, 24 July 1996, and 27 August 1997. The transcripts of these interviews are in my possession. 117 Thompson and Seager, Canada 1922–1939, 179–82. Wetherell and Kmet, Useful Pleasures, 253. 118 Quoted in Abrams, Selling The Old-Time Religion, 96. 119 For the ways in which Smith used these slide shows to draw a crowd, see the advertisement in the Toronto Star, 29 March 1930, 26. 120 Vipond, Listening In, Chapter 4. 121 Ibid, 86, 98. 122 Abrams, Selling The Old-Time Religion, 100. 123 Johnston, “The Early Trials of Protestant Radio, 1922–38,” 380, 384, 400. 124 For an insightful analysis of fundamentalists’ use of radio in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s see Opp, “‘Culture of the Soul’,” 117–45. Also notable among Canadian fundamentalists was Calgary-based evangelist William Aberhart, whose “Back to the Bible” broadcast, begun in 1925, propelled Aberhart into politics. Aberhart became the Premier of

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138

Notes to pages 83–8 Alberta in 1935. Elliott and Miller, Bible Bill: A Biography of William Aberhart. Hall, Not Made For Defeat, 165. Smith, Oswald Smith’s Short Stories. Jarvis Street Baptist Church Archives, T.T. Shields to B.A. Whitten, 21 November 1931. My analysis of Smith’s commodification of religion is informed by McDannell, Material Christianity, especially 246, 267–8. Mullin, “Denominations as Bilingual Communities,” 164–5. Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 242. Smith, Can Organized Religion Survive? 22, 27. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 11, Folder 3, “Leader Has New Plan of Evangelism.” See Dorothy C. Bass’s description of restorationist churches in “Congregations and the Bearing of Traditions,” especially 184. Neely, Fire In His Bones, 72. Smith, Can Organized Religion Survive?, “The Challenge of the Churches.” Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 4–8. For instance, in Canadian Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century: An Introduction to its Character, John Stackhouse argues that Shields’s militancy was unusual among Canadian fundamentalists. According to Stackhouse, “Canadians, like their British counterparts, became more and more concerned about the general drift of their cultures away from traditional Christianity and responded to that drift in various ways, but they did so generally without militancy and the loss of cultural authority typical of much of American evangelicalism affected by the fundamentalist heritage.” (198) Historian Robert Burkinshaw agrees. In Pilgrims in Lotus Land: Conservative Protestantism in British Columbia, 1917–1981, Burkinshaw observes that British Columbian fundamentalists “did not normally express their alienation nor defend their values with the same degree of militancy as American fundamentalists did.” (13) Here and elsewhere in the country, Canadians reacted in a manner similar to their colleagues across the Atlantic. As historian Ian Rennie recently noted, “British conservative evangelicals … expressed defensiveness instead of anger.” Rennie, “Fundamentalism and the Varieties of North Atlantic Evangelicalism,” 337. Historians of the fundamentalist movement in Canada have noted among conservative evangelicals a tendency to form associations. In “Looking For That Blessed Hope: The Roots of Fundamentalism in Canada, 1878–1914,” Ronald Sawatsky outlined how a loose affiliation

Notes to pages 88–91

139

140 141 142

143 144 145

146 147 148 149 150 151

152

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of conservative evangelical businessmen built several protofundamentalist enterprises. In “Studies of Eight Canadian Fundamentalists,” David Elliott points to the many similarities between, and connections among, English-speaking Canadian and American fundamentalists. Elliott views Smith as a major player within this trans-national fundamentalism. (304) In a letter to Smith, Graham noted that “no man in the Christian ministry has encouraged me more or been so great an inspiration to me than you.” bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 1, Folder 12, Billy Graham to Oswald Smith, 27 June 1974. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 8, Folder 14, Herald of the Times 5 (May 1928). For instance, see Toronto Globe, 17 May 1926, 1. Smith, Can Organized Religion Survive?, 23. Smith’s problem was not limited to Toronto. To cite just one example, Smith’s evangelistic tour of English-speaking Canadian cities under the auspices of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in the winter and spring of 1924 was all but ignored by local dailies. Rutherford, The Making of the Canadian Media, 38, 68. See also Vipond, The Mass Media in Canada, 13–14; Bliss, Northern Enterprise, 341–2. The reporter found at least one convert who had this experience. Toronto Star, 25 April 1921, 17. For newspaper coverage of the controversy, see Toronto Evening Telegram, 24 September 1930, 1; Toronto Star, 24 September 1930, 1, 2; Toronto Globe, 24 September 1930, 13, 14; 25 September, 13; 26 September, 13. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 2, Folder 2. Without membership lists, no definitive observations may be made regarding the makeup of Smith’s audiences. Smith, Can Organized Religion Survive?, 29. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 2, Folder 2, Gospel Witness 18:48 (4 April 1940) “Undenominationalism.” Reynolds, Footprints, 411. With the exception of an African-Canadian man and woman, all the students are caucasian in a photograph of the “First Student Body” of Smith’s Canadian Bible Institute. bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 10, Folder 8, Canadian Alliance 1:4 (September 1924). bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 10, Folder 6, News of News 1:8 (August-December 1921). This statement is confirmed by supportive letters to Smith penned under company letterheads. See, for instance, bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 1, Folder 14, Letter from “A. Sims, Publisher” to Oswald J. Smith, 23 December 1926.

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153 University of Toronto Archives, Department of Graduate Records, R.E. Hooper, Accession A73–0026/155 (43); bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 11, Folder 14, The Tabernacle News. 154 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 10, Folder 6, The Tabernacle Monthly 2:1 (August 1922). 155 Smith, What Hath God Wrought!, 207–8. 156 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 9, Folder 3, The Peoples Monthly 14:1 (January 1936). bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 3, File 7. 157 Ellis, “Gilboa to Ichabod, Social and Religious Factors in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Schism Among Canadian Baptists, 1895– 1934,” and Ellis, “Social and Religious Factors in the FundamentalistModernist Schism among Baptists in North America, 1895–1934.” 158 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 10, Folder 6, News of News, 1:7 (July 1921). 159 Ibid., (August-December 1921). 160 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 11, Folder 3, Ted Honderich, “They’ve Set a Record for Mission-Giving,” Toronto Star Weekly, 24 September 1955, 8. 161 McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, 142. 162 Historian Betty DeBerg has characterized the fundamentalist movement as a deliberate strategy on the part of men to reassert their control of the church and society. DeBerg, Ungodly Women. Historian Michael Hamilton has responded to DeBerg by noting that, though women were barred from the fundamentalist ministry, they took advantage of many other opportunities for leadership. Furthermore, the restrictions placed on women’s leadership were not specific to fundamentalism but were part of a society-wide movement limiting women’s independence. Hamilton, “Women, Public Ministry and American Fundamentalism, 1920–1950.” 163 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 8, Folder 10, The Alliance World, 3:8 (November 1923), Oswald J. Smith, “Woman’s Ministry.” 164 obca, ojsp, Lois Neely, “The Last Interview.” 165 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 11, Folder 3, “Old Time Revivals Draw Big Crowds, Even in Last Days.” 166 bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Box 8, Folder 10, The Alliance World, 3:8 (November 1923), Oswald J. Smith, “Woman’s Ministry.”

chapter three 1 Ottawa Citizen, 4 November 1932, 13. 2 The activities of the Oxford Group in Canada have been the subject of both popular and scholarly analysis since the 1930s. Historians have been struck by the cultural sensitivity of Buchman’s band of

Notes to pages 97–100

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missionaries and the way in which the message of these men and women resonated with contemporary hopes and fears. Several have argued that the Group weakened the commitment of Protestants to social Christianity. Robert Stewart, in an important Master of Divinity thesis, focuses on the ways in which Buchman and his team targeted members of the upper class. Stewart argues that the Oxford Group integrated its message into the elite culture of its supporters by preaching a version of Christianity that was shorn of social concern. “In the name of spiritual revolution,” Stewart argues, “the Oxford Group accommodated itself to those who powerfully controlled the material world.” Stewart, “Radiant Smiles in the Dirty Thirties,” 119. N. Keith Clifford echoes Stewart’s lament and contends that the Oxford Group succeeded because English-speaking Canadians averted their eyes from a frightening future and gazed longingly to past verities. The Group’s tours helped turn men and women away from social Christianity and toward an emphasis on personal experience, therapies, and “mind cures.” Clifford, “Religion in the Thirties,” 131–2. David Marshall’s synopsis is similarly pessimistic, though different in emphasis, contending that the popularity of the Oxford Group’s message – a message that accommodated cultural impulses – offers convincing evidence that early twentieth-century mainstream Christianity was in a state of decay. “Indeed,” Marshall concludes, “the success of the Oxford Group movement and the fact that it was uncritically endorsed by many prominent clergymen indicated the degrees to which Protestantism had been transformed into a secular value system largely concerned with material comfort and psychological contentment.” Marshall, Secularizing the Faith, 227. Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 3–7. Lean is the most thorough and reliable source of information on Buchman’s early life. Wacker, “The Holy Spirit and the Spirit of the Age in American Protestantism, 1880–1910,” 52. Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 10–11, 13, 17, 81–2. Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 21. Quoted in Ibid., 30–1. For another account of these events, see Russell, For Sinners Only, 58. Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 31. Ibid., 74. Jarlert, The Oxford Group, 59–61. See Time, 18 October 1926, 18 July 1927, 28 May 1928; Life, 18 November 1926. Begbie, Life Changers. Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, Chapter 13.

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Notes to pages 101–6

12 Norrie and Owram, A History of the Canadian Economy, 490. 13 Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 123–4, 136; Moir, Enduring Witness, 237. 14 Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 128–9; 136–8; Wright, “The Canadian Protestant Tradition, 1914–1945,” 171–3; 191–2. 15 Allen, The Social Passion; Wright, “The Canadian Protestant Tradition, 1914–1945,” 178; Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 141. 16 Gauvreau and Christie, A Full-Orbed Christianity. 17 Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism, 288, 290, 295. 18 Quoted in Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 149. 19 Throughout 1932, the United Church’s publication, New Outlook, made reference to “preaching missions” around the country. The new church was not alone: among English-speaking Canadian Baptists a series of revivals in the early months of 1932 was met with an enthusiastic response. For evidence of United Church campaigns in the spring and summer, see New Outlook, 30 March 1932, 294; 6 April 1932, 318; 4 May 1932, 414; 24 August 1932, 778. David Marshall makes reference to Baptist revivals during this period in Secularizing the Faith, 212. 20 New Outlook, 23 December 1931, 1224. 21 Quoted in Clifford, “Religion in the Thirties,” 128. 22 ucc, vua, Records of Joint Committee on Evangelization of Canadian Life, Box 45, File 4. 23 ucc, vua, George Campbell Pidgeon Papers, Box 9, File 173, Minutes, 21 October 1932. 24 ucc, vua, Records of Joint Committee on Evangelization of Canadian Life, Box 45, Files 1, 3, 4. ucc, vua, George Campbell Pidgeon Papers, Box 9, File 174, “Report on the proposed Simultaneous Movement for the Evangelization of Canadian Life.” Pidgeon’s role in the “Joint Committee” is analyzed in Plaxton, “A Whole Gospel for a Whole Nation,” 105–9. 25 Quoted in Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 118. 26 Descriptions of Canadian team members can be found in Toronto Globe, 14 December 1932, 11; Vancouver Sun, 31 March 1933, 1. 27 New Outlook, 7 December 1932, 1134. 28 Montreal Witness and Canadian Homestead, 26 October 1932, 4. 29 These “House Parties” were frequently announced in the press. For instance, see Regina Leader-Post, 11 May 1933, 1. 30 Montreal Witness, 2 November 1932, 3. 31 This section draws on evidence from the Montreal Witness through 1932, and 1934–1936. Editions of the 1933 Witness no longer exist in either hard-copy or microfilm form. Similarly, Bob Stewart’s “Radiant Smiles in the Dirty Thirties: History and Ideology of the Oxford

Notes to pages 106–8

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35 36 37 38

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Group Movement in Canada 1932–1936” makes no reference to 1933 editions of the Witness. Ottawa Citizen, 8 November 1932, 2, 4. Quoted in Montreal Witness, 25 April 1934, 8. More detail concerning these events can be found in Ottawa Citizen, 15 November 1932, 1; Montreal Witness, 30 November 1932, 11; 21 December 1932, 6. The Ottawa “conscience money” story was not unique. In Tabor, Alberta, according to an article in the Witness, one man responded to the testimony of members of an indigenous Oxford Group by confessing several thefts to the local authorities. He was sent to jail, the Witness article noted, where he proceeded to try to convince his fellow convicts to experience a life change. 25 April 1934, 9. Quoted in Montreal Witness, 28 December 1932, 11. More detail concerning these events during the Toronto campaign can be found in Toronto Telegram, 10 December 1932, 1; Toronto Globe, 9 December 1932, 1 and 12 December 1932, 13; Montreal Witness, 28 December 1932, 11. Quoted in Jarlert, The Oxford Group, 394. Montreal Witness, 2 May 1934, 7. Orr, Always Abounding! 122. ucc, vua, George Campbell Pidgeon Papers, Correspondence, 17 November 1932, Box 9, File 174; ucc, vua, Bloor Street United Church Session Minutes, Box 5, File 2, 15 September 1933; Grant, George Pidgeon: A Biography, 126–32. For more on Pidgeon’s role concerning the Oxford Group in Canada, see Plaxton, “A Whole Gospel for a Whole Nation,” 42–52. For the reaction of Richard Roberts, another influential United Church leader, to the Oxford Group, see Gidney, “Richard Roberts,” 98–110. Montreal Witness, 3 January 1934, 7, 8. ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 405, Letter from Reverend J.W. Clarke, 18 September 1933. For instance, see the report of a Winnipeg House Party in Montreal Witness, 17 January 1934, 8. The Royal Alexandria Hotel event received wide coverage in the Winnipeg press. The mayor addressed the meeting, which was attended by several wealthy members of the community. For a sense of the work of these indigenous groups, see the Canadian Churchman, 21 June 1934, 402–3; Montreal Witness, 3 January 1934, 7; ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 405, Letter from Reverend W.E. MacNiven, 19 September 1933. In his study of the impact of the Oxford Group on Northern Europe, Jarlert observes among established Christian organizations a similar tendency to incorporate Oxford Group practices into established forms of worship. Jarlert, The Oxford Group, 177.

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Notes to pages 108–13

41 Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism, 3–4. 42 Toronto Globe, 9 December 1932, 1. 43 ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 398, “See Benefits from Oxford Group.” 44 Begbie, Life Changers, 76. 45 Quoted in Macintosh, Personal Religion, 384. 46 Quoted in Ibid., 384. 47 Begbie, Life Changers, 32. 48 Ottawa Citizen, 9 November 1932, 3. 49 Quoted in Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 104. For his part, Buchman never married. It is unclear if his lifestyle influenced his approach to what he viewed to be sins of a sexual nature. 50 Lears, No Place of Grace, 13–14. 51 Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap and Water, 69. 52 Ibid, 70, 71. Hall, Hidden Anxieties, Male Sexuality, 1900–1950, 29–30. 53 Quoted in Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 236. 54 N.A., What is the Oxford Group?, 23. 55 Bebbington, “The Oxford Group Movement Between the Wars,” 501. 56 Montreal Witness, 28 March 1934, 8. 57 Ibid., 2 May 1934, 7. 58 Quoted in Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 235. 59 Ottawa Citizen, 7 November 1932, 13. 60 ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 407, Letter to Reverend Richard Flinn, 5 December 1933. 61 Montreal Witness, 26 October 1932, 3. 62 Ostrander, “The Battery and the Windmill.” 63 Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 92. 64 Winnipeg Free Press, 16 May 1933, 1. 65 Jarlert, The Oxford Group, 170. 66 Russell, For Sinners Only, 24. 67 Montreal Witness, 9 November 1932, 6. 68 Wacker, “The Holy Spirit and the Spirit of the Age in American Protestantism, 1880–1910,” 54–7. 69 Neatby, The Politics of Chaos, 8. 70 Montreal Witness, 24 January 1934, 9; 23 May 1934, 10. 71 Canadian Baptist, 15 December 1932, 4. In his book For Sinners Only, Russell also spoke of “the expulsive power of a new affection,” 34. 72 N.A., What is the Oxford Group? By a Layman with a Notebook, 47. 73 Montreal Witness, 14 December 1932, 11. 74 Members of a Rosedale Group in Toronto, for example, testified to feeling more love for one another after following Group practices. Ibid., 3 January 1934, 7. 75 Mullin, Miracles and the Modern Religious Imagination, 246.

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76 Clark, The Oxford Group, Its History and Significance, 124, 125 and Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 78. 77 Begbie, Life Changers, 37–8. 78 See, for instance, Montreal Witness, 30 May 1934, 10. 79 Mullin, Miracles and the Modern Religious Imagination, 222. One medical writer summed up the opinion of many of his colleagues with the advice “let the shoemaker stick to his last. Let the clergyman heal the soul. Leave to the physician the attempt to cure disease.” Quoted in Mullin, Miracles and the Modern Religious Imagination, 247. “In no other era,” observes historian James Burrows in Organized Medicine in the Progressive Era, “did medical organizations make greater attempts to cultivate a professional mystique.” (154) As a result of the pressure of doctors, nearly every state government passed some form of legislation barring those without specifically medical training, including clergy, from engaging in the process of healing. Numbers and Sawyer, “Medicine and Christianity in the Modern World,” 144. 80 Moore, “Secularization: Religion and the Social Sciences,” 240. For more on ministers as healers in the nineteenth-century, see Numbers and Sawyer, “Medicine and Christianity in the Modern World,” 140. 81 Mullin, Miracles and the Modern Religious Imagination, 244–5. 82 Quoted in ibid., 248. 83 Numbers and Sawyer, “Medicine and Christianity in the Modern World,” 144. In 1930, to cite one example, Oxford Group sympathizer Leslie Weatherhead published Psychology in Service of the Soul, reminding his readers that “the aim of practical psychology is that of the New Testament … the facing up to life bravely, and the making of it that vigorous, radiant, confident healthful thing God meant it to be.” (xix) 84 Lears, “From Salvation to Self-Realization,” 4. 85 Montreal Witness, 18 April 1934, 7. 86 Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 236. 87 Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 193. 88 Douglas, “A Family Photo of the United Church of Canada Winnipeg, 1930,” 24. See also Clifford, “Religion in the Thirties,” 131. Dr. Sybil Tremellen, a clinical psychologist in London, England, observed that “the psychologist … can give no patient any power that is higher than his own. God can and is doing both through the Oxford Group. We have been in close contact with people who until a year or more ago were victims of functional nervous disorder … Some had had analytic treatment without any help … now they are healthy, happy, free from fears and with an adult and responsible outlook on life.” Quoted in Montreal Witness, 15 August 1934, 8. 89 Shoemaker, The Conversion of the Church, 72.

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Notes to pages 116–23

90 Quoted in Clifford, “Religion in the Thirties,” 128. 91 McNaught, The Pelican History of Canada, 249. According to one historian, the 1930s “became an intensely political decade; a decade of political radicalism, of new concepts of the economic role of government, and of the creation of new political parties and new political institutions.” Neatby, The Politics of Chaos: Canada in the Thirties, 36, 182. 92 Regina Leader-Post, 16 May 1933, 1. 93 Quoted in Granatstein et al., Nation: Canada Since Confederation, 329. For the conclusions of Jackson and Thomas see Gauvreau and Christie, A Full-Orbed Christianity, 224–6. 94 Ottawa Citizen, 14 November 1932, 25. 95 Regina Leader-Post, 11 May 1933, 1. 96 Ibid., 11 May 1933, 1. 97 Quoted in Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, 103–4. 98 ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 408, Letter from Russell Harris. See also Wright, A World Mission, 39. Others sounded the alarm in the United States. To American Methodist Episcopal minister E. Stanley Jones, nothing less than the fate of the world was at stake. In his 1935 book, Christ’s Alternative to Communism, Jones contended that “no mere tinkering will do now. We must meet radicalism with a wiser and better radicalism (74).” 99 ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 403, Pamphlet for Chateau Frontenac House Party, 26 May–5 June 1933. 100 Ottawa Citizen, 11 November 1932, 21. 101 Ibid., 24 March 1934, 4. 102 Montreal Witness, 27 June 1934, 7. 103 Hudnut-Beumler, Looking for God in the Suburbs, 29–30. 104 Kasson, Amusing the Million. 105 For instance, see the testimony of an anonymous clergyman in Montreal Witness, 28 December 1932, 11. In Canada, this “institutional church” movement peaked in the third decade of the century. “During the 1920s,” notes historian John Webster Grant, “there was a proliferation of church gymnasia, including swimming pools, basketball courts, and dressing rooms.” Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 131. 106 Holifield, “Toward a History of American Congregations.” 107 Montreal Witness, 20 June 1934, 9, 10. 108 Regina Leader-Post, 12 May 1933, 4. 109 Montreal Witness, 23 November 1932, 7. 110 Buchman, Remaking the World, 10. 111 Toronto Telegram, 10 December 1932, 1. 112 Quoted in Kilde, When Church Became Theatre, 204.

Notes to pages 123–7 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122

123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

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Holifield, “Toward a History of American Congregations,” 46. Montreal Witness, 16 November 1932, 6. Ibid. Toronto Telegram, 10 December 1932, 1. Ottawa Citizen, 8 November 1932, 4. Quoted in Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 237. Orr, Always Abounding!, 112. Lears, No Place of Grace, 35. Montreal Witness, 14 February 1934, 10. Toronto Globe, 16 December 1932, 13. In the same vein, Groupist Francis Elliston testified to a Vancouver audience that “he had also found direction in life, with tearing down of the barriers and masks and the bringing in of honesty, purity and unselfishness.” Vancouver Sun, 31 March 1933, 1. Montreal Witness, 9 November 1932, 6. Ottawa Citizen, 5 November 1932, 17. Ibid., 26 October 1932, 4. McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, 528. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 235. Bebbington, “The Oxford Group Movement Between the Wars,” 507. ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Letter from Rev. J.A. Mowatt, 2 November 1932, Box 23, File 400. Ottawa Citizen, 7 November 1932, 13. Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 200. This preparation was invisible to most Canadians. See New Outlook, 7 December 1932, 1134. ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 9, File 174, Letter to Pidgeon, 26 November 1932. For evidence of these strategies, see the preparations made for the visit to Calgary, as reported in Montreal Witness, 30 May 1934, 8 as well as ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Board of Evangelism and Social Service Correspondence, 1 December 1932, Box 23, File 400. Stewart, “Radiant Smiles in the Dirty Thirties,” 90. The Western Recorder, January 1933, 4–5, 8; February 1933, 8; March 1933, 4; April 1933, 3–4; May 1933, 6; August 1933, 6; April 1934, 11–12. For instance, after a visit to Britain, Dean C.S. Quainton returned to his Anglican cathedral in Victoria with glowing reports of the Group’s work. Stewart, “Radiant Smiles in the Dirty Thirties,” 93. Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 153, 5. New Outlook, 7 December 1932, 1089. United Church ministers who wrote to George Pidgeon also noted the disproportionate support of the Anglican clergy in organizing the International Team campaigns. For instance, see ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 405, Letter from Rev. J.W. Clarke, 18 September 1933.

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Notes to pages 128–31

138 Quoted in Jarlert, The Oxford Group, 108. 139 Toronto Telegram, 16 December 1932, 1. For details of the financial records of the Oxford Group in Sweden, see Jarlert, The Oxford Group, 109. 140 Articles on the Oxford Group were placed on the front page of the Toronto Globe and Toronto Telegram, as well as the Vancouver Sun throughout their stay in these cities. Front-page articles were published in the Ottawa Citizen, Winnipeg Free Press and Regina LeaderPost at the beginning of the Group’s campaigns in these cities, but as the meetings continued the articles were moved toward the back of the newspapers. Ottawa Citizen, 4 November – 15 November 1932; Toronto Globe, 9 December – 24 December 1932; Toronto Telegram, 9 December – 20 December 1932; Vancouver Sun 29 March – 1 April 1933; Regina Leader-Post, 11 May – 15 May 1933; Winnipeg Free Press 15 May – 18 May 1933. For one example of an editorial endorsement, see Vancouver Sun, 1 April 1933, 4. 141 Toronto Telegram, 14 December 1932, 1. 142 Russell, For Sinners Only, especially Chapter 2. 143 Leiss et al., Social Communication in Advertising, 137. 144 For Sinners Only, by A.J. Russell, who wrote for The Sunday Express, sold 117,000 copies in Britain in one year alone. Bebbington, “The Oxford Group Movement Between the Wars,” 498. The Montreal Witness provided a comprehensive list of Oxford Group books and of stores where these could be purchased. 30 November 1932, 11. Also, see the advertisement in The Western Recorder, April 1933, 7. 145 Toronto Telegram, 19 December 1932, 3; 20 December 1932, 1. 146 ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 404, Letter from G.P. McLeod, 1 May 1933. 147 ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 404, Letter from G.P. McLeod, 14 June 1933. 148 In the year following McLeod’s arrival at Shaughnessy Heights in 1932, church membership grew by 13 per cent, and twenty-two members were received into the church by profession of faith. Church growth in 1933, the year of the Oxford Group’s first visit to Vancouver, was 13 per cent, but only eight new members were received by profession of faith. United Church of Canada Yearbook, 1934; 1935. 149 Toronto Globe, 12 December 1932, 1. 150 For example, see Montreal Witness, 7 March 1934, 7, “I Was A Christian.” 151 “Total Membership” at Bloor Street United Church on 31 December 1931 was 1666; on 31 December 1932, 1712; on 31 December 1933, 1666; on 31 December 1934, 1709. United Church of Canada Yearbook, 1932; 1933; 1934; 1935 (Toronto: United Church of Canada, 1932; 1933;

Notes to pages 131–2

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1934; 1935). The numbers for new members by profession of faith increased from twenty-three in the year preceding the arrival of the Oxford Group to thirty-one by the end of 1932 and thirty-seven by the end of 1933. United Church of Canada Yearbook, 1933; 1934. The congregation at Westminster Central United Church grew by 1 per cent in 1932 (from 771 to 780) and 1.2 per cent in 1933 (to 792). Those received into the church by profession of faith in the year before the Oxford Group’s arrival numbered eleven. This grew to fourteen in 1933 and seventeen in 1934. Ibid. Both Bloor Street United and Westminster Central United had been Presbyterian churches before church union. The congregations would have been accustomed to the “profession of faith” as a prerequisite to membership. The United Church grew from 671, 443 in 1931 to 678, 445 in 1932, to 686, 492 in 1933, to 688, 099 in 1934. United Church of Canada Yearbook, 1934; 1935. Those admitted into membership by profession of faith decreased from 25, 560 to 25, 343 in 1932, to 24, 392 in 1933 and 21, 857 in 1934. United Church of Canada Yearbook, 1933, 1934; 1935. “Actual Number of Communicants” at Church of the Redeemer was listed as “1300” for several years. Sunday morning attendance increased by 20 per cent through 1933. Through 1934 the Sunday morning attendance declined by 12 per cent (to 500). 1933; 1934 Journal of the Incorporated Synod of the Diocese of Toronto of the Church of England in Canada (Toronto: Parker Brothers, 1933; 1934). The Sunday morning attendance at St. Clement’s Riverdale, though unchanged through 1933 (at 250), the year after the Oxford Group’s visit, increased by 17 per cent in 1934 (to 293). 1933; 1934; 1935 Journal of the Incorporated Synod of the Diocese of Toronto of the Church of England in Canada. The number of communicants at St. Alban’s Cathedral declined by 24 per cent in the year after the Oxford Group’s visit to Toronto (from 665 to 505), and 1 per cent in the following year (to 499). Sunday morning attendance also dropped significantly, from 300 in 1932 to 250 in 1933, a decline of 16 per cent, to 220 in 1934, a decline of 12 per cent. Ibid. Communicants at Christ Church increased by 15.4 per cent in 1933 (from 1300 to 1500), but the Sunday morning attendance was unchanged (at 600). The number of communicants decreased by 10 per cent in the 1934 (to 1350), but the Sunday morning attendance increased by 10 per cent (to 657). Ibid. The number of Anglican communicants in Toronto increased from 25,673 (1932) to 36,523 (1933), then declined to 33,353 (1934). The

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Notes to pages 132–7 attendance at Toronto Sunday morning services rose from 15,807 (1932) to 16,892 (1933), then declined to 16,682 (1934). Ibid. Curtis, “The Son of Man and God the Father,” 72–3. Quoted in Abrams, Selling The Old-Time Religion, 40. Regina Leader-Post, 12 May 1933, 4. Winnipeg Free Press, 15 May 1933, 2. ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 405, Letter from Rev. J.W. Clarke, 18 September 1933. For Janet Binns’s thoughts on women’s life-changing work see Montreal Witness, 28 March 1934, 7. Montreal Witness, 6 June 1934, 8. The Committee of Thirty, The Challenge of the Oxford Group Movement. Quoted in Bebbington, “The Oxford Group Movement Between the Wars,” 504. Montreal Witness, 21 March 1934, 7. ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 403. Ibid., File 408, “General Memorandum on Oxford Group Plans for 1934.” Ibid., File 405, “Oxford Group in Toronto School of Life” invitation. Ibid., Letter from Rev. J.W. Clarke, 18 September 1933. Ibid., File 408, Letter from Russell Harris, n.d. Ottawa Citizen, 5 November 1932, 17. Ibid. Montreal Witness, 2 November 1932, 6. Toronto Globe, 12 December 1932, 1. See also Toronto Telegram, 12 December 1932, 17. Shields, The Oxford Group Movement Analyzed. Smith, The Man God Uses, 84. The criticisms of Shields and Smith were gentle in comparison to other Toronto fundamentalists. A pamphlet published by “Albert Hughes” portrayed the International Team members as emissaries of the Devil. The Group’s message of “life change” had nothing to do with essential Christianity, Hughes argued. “Satan’s emphasis today is upon character, culture, religious education, personal discipline, clean morals, changed relationships, all apart from the blood of Christ and the indwelling power of Christ by the Holy Spirit.” ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 398, Albert Hughes, “‘Life Changing’, Is It Scriptural? How God’s Word Answers ‘The Oxford Group Movement,’” 6. In the same vein, letters to the editor of the Toronto Globe portrayed the Group as a manifestation of the Devil and a cult. Toronto Globe, 21 December 1932, 4. Airhart traces the controversy that began around 1910 as a result of Creighton’s stand against the doctrine of conversion and many of the practices of mass evangelism. Airhart, Serving the Present Age, 129–31. David Marshall ably summarizes the criticisms of the Oxford Group by other United Church leaders in Secularizing the Faith, 224–6.

Notes to pages 137–9

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176 177 178 179

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The criticisms of liberal Protestants in Canada were similar in substance to the criticisms of liberals in England. Most outspoken among the latter was Herbert Henson, a Bishop of the Church of England. According to historian Robert Mullin, Henson “was perhaps the most notorious of the English Modernist bishops, and his views on the virgin birth and miracles were well known on both sides of the Atlantic.” Mullin, Miracles and the Modern Religious Imagination, 245. Henson was most upset by the Group’s “biblical literalism.” Henson, The Oxford Groups, 47–8. New Outlook, 21 December 1932, 1184. Several other ministers at this meeting shared Creighton’s assessment. According to a report issued by the United Church’s Board of Evangelism and Social Service, “undue emphasis” on the topic by International Team members “brought such unfortunate results that it is hoped that the mistake will not be repeated in other centres.” ucca, George Campbell Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 401, Report of the Board of Evangelism and Social Service, 2. Dr. G.H. Stevenson, a Toronto psychiatrist, noted on another page of the New Outlook that it was unfortunate that the Oxford Group viewed masturbation to be a sin, and that discussion of this subject in a public meeting of clergymen “might perhaps be regarded as a verbal form of sexual perversion.” New Outlook, 21 December 1932, 1189. The 4 January 1933 issue was the last to include discussion of the Oxford Group’s activities. ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Letter from Rev. Albert E. Jones, 22 December 1932, Box 23, File 400. According to Donald Creighton, his father was ostracized from his church. Creighton, “My Father and the United Church,” 94–9. Quoted in Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 202. For coverage of the Oxford Group in Toronto, see Globe, 19 March 1934, 4; in Ottawa, see Ottawa Citizen, 24 March 1934, 4 and Montreal Witness, 16 May 1934, 7. For a summary of the rest of the Group’s Canadian tour, see Montreal Witness, 27 June 1934, 12. Diminished crowds were evident in Toronto, where it was noted that, though the Alexander Room had been reserved for the overflow from the Crystal Ballroom at the King Edward Hotel, it had not been needed. Toronto Globe, 19 March 1934, 4. Nevertheless, the audience at each meeting was substantial. For evidence of a decline in coverage, compare Toronto Globe, 9 December 1932, 1; 10 December 1932, 1; 12 December 1932, 1 with Toronto Globe, 19 March 1934, 4; 20 March 1934, 3; 21 March 1934, 5; 22 March 1934, 6, 8. Montreal Witness, 2 May 1934, 7. Toronto Globe, 20 March 1934, 3.

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Notes to pages 139–42

183 Ibid., 20 March 1934, 3. 184 Ottawa Citizen, 24 March 1934, 4. 185 ucc, vua, Pidgeon Papers, Box 23, File 406, N.A., “The Oxford Group, A Manifesto” (London: n.p., 1933). 186 Weeks after Hitler dissolved the Reichstag, the building burned to the ground. Hitler’s supporters may have engineered the blaze, but Hitler blamed the Communists and persuaded the President to grant him extraordinary powers to ensure the stability of the state. In the ensuing election, his Nazi party received 44 per cent of vote. Nevertheless, Hitler pushed through Parliament an Enabling Act which granted him power to rule without the restraints of the Constitution. In July 1933, his cabinet announced that the Nazi party was “the only political party in Germany.” In the months that followed, the Nazis silenced their critics through imprisonment or assassination. 187 Buchman’s attempt to meet Hitler is outlined in Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 207–8. Jarlert describes Buchman’s campaigns in countries bordering Germany in The Oxford Group, 407. 188 Lean, Frank Buchman: A Life, 209. 189 Ottawa Citizen, 24 March 1934, 4. 190 See Montreal Witness, 13 June 1934, 7, 9. 191 Canadian Churchman, 14 June 1934, 387. 192 Ottawa Citizen, 26 March 1934, 14. 193 The Saint John and Fredericton meetings are summarized in Montreal Witness, 4 July 1934, 5, and 25 April 1934, 8, respectively. 194 Similarly, compare the work of a young people’s Group in Ottawa (Ibid., 14 March 1934, 9) with the International Team’s message in Toronto. (Ibid., 21 March 1934, 7) 195 Ibid., 15 January 1936, 5. 196 Quoted in Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 240. 197 Williamson, Inside Buchmanism, 148. “The only sure victory,” Buchman declared in a speech delivered in 1938, “lies in this compelling answer backed by the sure right arm of military strength, so that our statesmen may not be out-thought, and our armies out-fought.” Quoted in Howard, The World Rebuilt, 153. During the war, Buchman soldiered on, allying himself even more closely with politics. In the United States, M.R.A. published a patriotic pamphlet, You Can Defend America, which was sponsored by General Pershing. This was turned into a revue for men and women north of the border, who were urged to “Pull Together Canada.” At the conclusion of the war, Buchman created his own version of the United Nations, the “World Assembly for Moral Re-Armament” which met in Caux, Switzerland. For M.R.A. activities during and

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after World War II, see Clark, The Oxford Group, Its History and Significance, Chapter 8.

chapter four 1 The Standard Magazine, 6 April 1946, 3. 2 Charles Templeton Papers, Newspaper Clippings File, New World, April 1946. Templeton gave me access to his personal collection of material concerning his evangelistic career. To organize the material, I arranged it in a series of files. These Papers have been delivered to the York University Archives in Toronto. 3 Templeton’s evangelistic career, and the manner by which he marketed popular religion, has not yet been the focus of scholarly study. This chapter represents the first attempt to examine his efforts in the 1940s to attract young people to his apparently “old-fashioned gospel,” and his attempt in the 1950s to reach adults with a modern message. 4 Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 15–21; Charles Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. Information regarding Templeton’s youth comes from Templeton himself. I conducted several interviews with Templeton, at his home in Toronto, on 19 July 1996, 24 July 1996, and 27 August 1997. The transcripts of these interviews are in my possession. 5 Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 25–32. Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. 6 Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 33–4. Templeton’s conversion has been described frequently by him and by others. I have relied on three different accounts for the basic details of his experience: the earliest published story of his conversion, in the Toronto Globe and Mail, 21 October 1942, 6; Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 8; Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 31–4. 7 Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 34. 8 Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. 9 Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States, 60, 36; Marty, Modern American Religion, Volume 1, 285; Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 178–9; Toronto Globe and Mail, 21 October 1942, 6. 10 Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. 11 Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 54. 12 St. Catharines Standard, 7 October 1955, 9. 13 Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 55. 14 Toronto Globe and Mail, 21 October 1942, 6. Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 55. 15 “I went down one day,” Templeton remembered, “and tried to enlist as a matter of fact. And he wouldn’t take me. He said ‘we’ve got enough padres.’ I said, ‘well, I’ll go in the regular thing.’ He said, ‘No

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17 18

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20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30

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Notes to pages 147–50 you won’t. You go back and do what you’re doing, you’re doing fine.’” Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. Toronto Globe and Mail, 21 October 1942, 6. Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 56. No church records exist to corroborate the age or total number of church attenders. Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996; Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 7, 8, 54–7; Toronto Globe and Mail, 21 October 1942, 6. Youth for Christ was patterned after Word of Life Fellowship, founded by Jack Wyrtzen in New York City in 1939. A talented musician, Wyrtzen had experienced a conversion soon after his girlfriend had been “born again.” He had given up his dance band, organized Word of Life, and two years later had begun Saturday night meetings featuring “consecrated” music and evangelistic preaching. His rallies for young people proved to be an instant hit. Carpenter, ed., The Youth for Christ Movement and Its Pioneers, ii. Other evangelists took note, most notably Torrey Johnson. Martin, A Prophet with Honor, 90. Joel Carpenter provides the best introduction to Youth for Christ in Revive Us Again, Chapter 9. For Billy Graham’s memories of Youth for Christ, see Graham, Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham, Chapter 6. bgca, Youth for Christ Papers [yfcp], Collection 48, Box 17, File 9, “Welcome to Second Annual Youth for Christ International Convention, July 22–29, 1946.” bgca, yfcp, Collection 48, Box 13, File 36, “Youth for Christ Winona Lake Conference Minutes, 26 July 1945, 1:15 pm. Ibid., File 37, “Welcome to Second Annual Youth for Christ International Convention, July 22–28, 1946.” Toronto Star, 8 June 1946, 15. Toronto Globe and Mail, 6 May 1946, 4. The Standard Magazine, 6 April 1946, 3. Charles Templeton Papers, Youth for Christ Tour Album, Chicago Daily Tribune, 14 March 1946, 7; Chicago Herald-American, 13 March 1946, 8. Quoted in Martin, A Prophet with Honor, 95. Templeton Papers, Youth for Christ Tour Album, “First Week Y.F.C. Itinerary,” 2. Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 217. Toronto Globe and Mail, 30 April 1946, 8. Ibid., 26 March 1945, 4. For more on the National Association of Evangelicals, see Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 141–60. For more on Fuller Seminary, see Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism. Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 141–60.

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32 bgca, Youth for Christ Papers, Collection 48, Box 13, Folder 36, “Constitution of Youth for Christ International.” 33 Torrey Johnson and Robert Cook, Reaching Youth for Christ, 63, in Carpenter, ed., The Youth for Christ Movement and Its Pioneers. For evidence of yfc’s de-emphasis of evolution and historical criticism, see “Three Things that Need to be Settled,” by Robert Cook, and “Five Words,” by Dr. Harry Rimmer, two sermons delivered at a Youth for Christ gathering, and Johnson and Cook, Reaching Youth for Christ, 79–80, 85–6 in Carpenter, ed., The Youth for Christ Movement and Its Pioneers. 34 Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. 35 Torrey Johnson quoted in Mel Larson, “Young Man on Fire; The Story of Torrey Johnson and Youth for Christ,” 111–12, in Carpenter, ed., The Youth for Christ Movement and Its Pioneers. 36 Toronto Star, 30 December 1944, 25. 37 Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 166. 38 Palladino, Teenagers, An American History, 81. 39 In 1941, H.J. Cody, the President of the University of Toronto, had tried to reassure English-speaking Canadians that “special efforts” would be made “to emphasize those spiritual values which make democracy desirable and make human life liveable.” Quoted in Axelrod, Scholars and Dollars, 16. 40 Toronto Globe and Mail, 6 May 1946, 4. English-speaking Canadians may have welcomed Youth for Christ as a solution to the problem of juvenile delinquency, in the manner described in an article published in the Charlotte, North Carolina, Observer. The meetings in that city, a reporter noted, were remarkably effective “among young people of a generation supposedly gone mad over movies, liquor, night clubs, dancing and illicit sex indulgence. More than that, it has taken over Saturday night, the one night of the week presumably dedicated to wine, women and song, to dissipation and even debauchery, and has made of it a ‘holy night’, with the atmosphere and spirit of the Sabbath itself.” Templeton Papers, Youth for Christ Tour Album, Charlotte Observer, 17 March 1946. 41 Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. “Who are the people that are saved in revivals?” asked Johnson in a speech delivered at the 1945 Youth for Christ annual conference held at Winona Lake, Indiana. “The answer is – young people.” bgca, yfcp, Collection 48, Box 13, File 36, Torrey Johnson, “Accepting the Challenge,” 26 July 1945. 42 Americans agreed. “We are the most potent weapon to combat juvenile delinquency,” observed Torrey Johnson, “and although we are being fought in our efforts by the Communists, we know that we

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55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

67

Notes to pages 154–8 will be successful in making the youth of the world much better citizens.” “World Youth Activities to Be Told Tonight,” Boston American, 11 May 1946, 5. Toronto Globe and Mail, 17 June 1946, 3. Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 57. Palladino, Teenagers, An American History, 50–1, 53, 90. Johnson and Cook, Reaching Youth for Christ, 36. Ibid., 36–7. Toronto Globe and Mail, 17 June 1946, 3. Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 57. Templeton Papers, Newspaper Clippings File, New World, April 1946. See Toronto Star, 17 June 1946, 2; Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 57; Templeton Papers, Photos File; Toronto Globe and Mail, 17 June 1946, 4. Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 57. Templeton Papers, Newspaper Clippings File, New World, April 1946. Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. Smith would soon join forces with Billy Graham. In 1998, he was still organizing music for the Graham “missions.” Tommy Ambrose went on to a successful career singing secular music. Templeton Papers, Youth for Christ Tour Album, Chicago HeraldAmerican, 23 March 1946, 4. Mutchmor, The Memoirs of James Ralph Mutchmor, 115. Toronto Globe and Mail, 30 April 1946, 8. See Jay Dolan’s explanation for the heightened status of priests in this era in Dolan, “Patterns of Leadership in the Congregation,” 247–8. Templeton Papers, Newspaper Clippings File, “Former Sports Cartoonist Now Leading Evangelist.” The Standard Magazine, 6 April 1946, 3. bgca, Torrey Maynard Johnson Papers, Collection 285, Tape 4, Side 1. Templeton Papers, Letters File, Letter to “Mr. Lautens,” 4 March 1991. Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 56. Johnson and Cook, Reaching Youth for Christ, 37. Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 8, 56; Templeton: Charles Templeton: An Anecdotal Memoir, 56. Carpenter describes the work of American “Christian Business Men’s Committees” in Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 172. References to the Toronto chapter’s support of Templeton’s work can be found in Toronto Star, 30 December 1944, 25; 1 June 1946, 9. For a brief outline of Toronto Youth for Christ expenses, see The Standard Magazine, 6 April 1946, 3. Mayor F.J. Convoy spoke at a Massey Hall meeting in 1944. Toronto Star, 30 December 1944, 25. Mayor Robert Saunders attended the

Notes to pages 159–62

68

69 70

71

72 73 74

75 76 77 78

237

inaugural Gardens rally. Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 65. Johnston, Selling Themselves, 182, 226–7; Curti, “The Changing Concept of Human Nature in the Literature of American Advertising,” 347, 354; Leiss et al., Social Communication in Advertising, 83–94, 135–55; Schudson, Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion, 171. Templeton Papers, Leaflets, Pamphlets, Advertisements File, “Chatham Vocational School, Chatham Youth for Christ.” Toronto Star, 8 June 1946, 15; Toronto Globe and Mail, 1 June 1946, 12. Other Youth for Christ leaders were similarly gifted. In the days leading up to their “European Invasion,” Johnson, Graham, and Templeton booked the first-ever commercial flight from Chicago to London, and organized press-friendly send-off rallies, including a large gathering to bid farewell at the Chicago airport. Generous coverage from the Chicago newspapers resulted. Templeton Papers, Youth for Christ European Invasion Album; Martin, A Prophet with Honor, 95. For coverage of Templeton’s return from Europe, see Toronto Globe and Mail, 6 March 1946, 4; Toronto Globe and Mail, 30 April 1946, 8; Toronto Star, 30 April 1946, 3. The newlyweds can be found at Toronto Star, 17 June 1946, 2 and Toronto Globe and Mail, 17 June 1946, 3. Years after Templeton had left Toronto, the evangelist’s move to the National Council of Churches was noted by the Toronto Globe and Mail, which also carried a short article when Templeton received an honorary doctorate in 1953. Toronto Globe and Mail, 28 July 1951, 2; 13 June 1953, 4. Toronto Star, 17 June 1946, 2. bgca, yfcp, Collection 48, Box 13, File 37, “Report of the Regional Vice-President, Eastern Canada.” Templeton’s assertion that his meetings were the largest weekly yfc gatherings was made in Templeton’s “Report of Regional VicePresident, Eastern Canada” at the 1946 Youth for Christ convention. bgca, yfcp, Collection 48, Box 13, File 37. He noted that his claim “has not as yet been successfully disputed.” The observation concerning the age of the audience members can be found in Templeton Papers, Newspaper Clippings File, New World, April 1946. The Standard Magazine, 6 April 1946, 23. Quoted in Mathisen, “Reviving ‘Muscular Christianity’”, 240. Templeton Papers, Advertisements File, “Chatham Vocational School, Chatham Youth for Christ.” Graham, Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham, 17–18. Templeton refers to Graham’s claim to a baseball career cut short in Templeton, Charles Templeton: An Anecdotal Memoir, 54.

238

Notes to pages 162–7

79 Templeton’s apology was noted in an article in the Regina Leader-Post, 24 February 1958. 80 For Templeton’s memories of his father, see Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 20–1. Templeton closes his autobiography by noting that, “for a while, I considered calling this book Hey Dad, look at me!” (349) 81 Curtis, “The Son of Man and God the Father: The Social Gospel and Victorian Masculinity,” 73. 82 Templeton Papers, Advertisements, Programs and Tracts File, Charles Templeton, “Vigorous Christianity.” 83 The Standard Magazine, 6 April 1946, 23. 84 Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 67. 85 Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. 86 Quoted in Berg, “‘Proclaiming Together’”, 53. 87 bgca, Torrey Johnson Papers, Collection 285, Tape 4, Side 1, Torrey Johnson Interview. 88 Mutchmor, The Memoirs of James Ralph Mutchmor, 115–16. Maclean’s, 15 May 1947, 56–7. 89 Princeton, a Presbyterian seminary, had been a bastion of conservatism until J. Ross Stevenson took over as President in 1914, and began to make the school more representative of the Presbyterian spectrum of belief. Stevenson’s reorganization of the school was too much for theologian J. Gresham Machen, who left to form Westminster Seminary in 1929. Marty, Modern American Religion, Volume 2, 182. 90 Fundamentalists’ efforts to alter Templeton’s course can be found in bgca, Torrey Johnson Papers, Collection 285, Tape 4, Side 1, Torrey Johnson Interview and bgca, ojsp, Collection 322, Letter from Don Mott, 19 August 1966. Templeton discussed his desire for respectability during the Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996. 91 Martin, A Prophet With Honor, 110. 92 Graham, Just As I Am, 136. 93 Quoted in Martin, A Prophet With Honor, 110. 94 Graham, Just As I Am, 139; Martin, A Prophet With Honor, 112. 95 Quoted in Berg, “‘Proclaiming Together’”, 54. 96 Templeton Interview, 19 July 1996; Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 75, 79. 97 Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 79–80; Toronto Globe, 28 July 1951, 2; Templeton Papers, Advertisements, Programs and Tracts File, “Christ is the Answer! The Greater Evansville Christian Rally, January 27 through February 11, 1952,” 10; Mutchmor, The Memoirs of James Ralph Mutchmor, 115–16. 98 Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 152–3.

Notes to pages 167–70

239

99 United Church Observer, 15 December 1952, 1. 100 Templeton Papers, Newspaper Clippings File, Edward Boyd, “Religion’s Super-Salesman,” American Magazine, August 1953. 101 Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 81. 102 Templeton Papers, Advertisements, Programs and Tracts File, “1952 Indiana State Pastors Conference.” 103 The United Churchman, 9 November 1950, 1. The story of the bootlegger is told in Templeton Papers, Newspaper Clippings File, Boyd, “Religion’s Super-Salesman,” American Magazine, August 1953. 104 Clarke, “English-Speaking Canada from 1854,” 355; Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 160, 170. Sectarian denominations like the Salvation Army also experienced numerical growth. Many within these smaller conservative evangelical churches, as historian John Stackhouse shows, focused their energies in the post-war period on developing transdenominational fellowships like the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship to nurture traditional evangelical spirituality. John Stackhouse, “The Protestant Experience in Canada Since 1945,” 202–5. See also Stackhouse, Canadian Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century. 105 Hudnut-Beumler, Looking for God in the Suburbs, 44. Ellwood, The Fifties Spiritual Marketplace, 11–13. The offerings of these American religious entertainment vendors were as popular in Canada as they were in the United States. As noted above, American periodicals made up 80 per cent of all general interest magazine sales in Canada in 1954. Finkel et al., History of the Canadian Peoples, 1867 to the Present, 427. The vast majority of families owned at least one radio, which was often tuned to an American station. And in the years following the war, during the “golden age of cinema,” the average Canadian attended almost twenty movies a year, almost all of which were produced in Hollywood. Vipond, The Mass Media in Canada, 58. 106 Templeton, Life Looks Up, 47. 107 Vancouver Province, 4 June 1954, 11. 108 Litt, The Muses, The Masses, and The Massey Commission, 249. 109 Quoted in Axelrod, Scholars and Dollars, 25. 110 Templeton, Life Looks Up, 10. “Democracy is a meaningless word apart from faith in God,” Templeton told his listeners in his sermon “Revolution! – Christian Style.” Ibid., 36. 111 Ibid., 28. 112 Quoted in Wright, A World Mission, 8. 113 Templeton, Life Looks Up, 28. 114 See the reports of this sermon in the Winnipeg Free Press, 20 November 1952, 15; Vancouver Province, 8 June 1954, 5; and St. Catharines Standard, 7 October 1955, 9.

240

Notes to pages 170–6

115 Templeton, The Church and Its Evangelistic Task, 14. 116 ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, Box 4, File 3, “Christ is the Answer” advertisement. 117 Templeton, Evangelism for Tomorrow, 67–73. 118 Templeton Interview, 24 July 1996. 119 ucc, vua, “Manual For a Templeton Christian Mission,” 4. 120 Winnipeg Free Press, 13 November 1952, 3. 121 Templeton, Life Looks Up, 88–9. My understanding of the differences between fundamentalist and liberal Protestant devotionalism is indebted to Ostrander, “The Battery and the Windmill: Two Models of Protestant Devotionalism in Early-Twentieth Century America.” 122 Templeton, Evangelism for Tomorrow, 66; Winnipeg Free Press, 11 November 1952, 3. 123 Templeton Papers, Newspaper Clippings File, 19 October 1951; Templeton, Life Looks Up, 107. 124 Hudnut-Beumler, Looking for God in the Suburbs, 66–7. 125 Ibid., 43. 126 Ibid. 127 Quoted in Templeton, Evangelism for Tomorrow, 156–7. 128 Templeton, Steps to Christian Commitment – How To Become A Christian (New York: The Division of Evangelism, n.d.). 129 Templeton, Life Looks Up, 54. 130 Vancouver Province, 31 May 1954, 21. 131 Francis et al., Destinies: Canadian History Since Confederation, 323–6; Granatstein et al., Nation, Canada Since Confederation, 420; Finkel et al., History of the Canadian Peoples, 1867 to the Present, 430. 132 Finkel et al., History of the Canadian Peoples, 1867 to the Present, 459. 133 Quoted in Axelrod, Making a Middle Class, 149. 134 Strong-Boag, “Home Dreams,” 498. 135 Templeton Papers, Music File, “True Happiness.” The song was written for, and featured on Templeton’s cbs show, “Look Up and Live.” 136 Dillenberger and Welch, Protestant Christianity, Interpreted Through Its Development, 216–17. 137 Vancouver Province, 1 June 1954, 1. 138 Templeton Papers, Advertisements, Programs and Tracts File, Charles Templeton, “One World or Two?” 139 Ibid., “Reader’s Forum: Evangelism.” 140 ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, “Manual for a Templeton Christian Mission,” 2. 141 Vancouver Province, 31 May 1954, 21. 142 Templeton Papers, Newspaper File, New York World-Telegram and Sun, 10 March 1951. 143 Ibid., The Irvington Presbyterian (Indianapolis), March 1953, 2.

Notes to pages 176–80

241

144 See ucc, vua, “Manual For a Templeton Christian Mission,” 8, 9; St. Catharine Standard, 3 October 1955, 9; The Vancouver Province, 31 May 1954, 21. 145 ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, “Manual For a Templeton Christian Mission,” 2. 146 Templeton Interview, 24 July 1996. 147 Templeton, Evangelism for Tomorrow, 59. See the description of an “after-service” in Vancouver Sun, 4 June 1954, 32. The church connection card is described in ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, Box 4, File 3, Templeton to Dr. R. Graham Barr, 12 September 1955. 148 Winnipeg Free Press, 11 November 1952, 3. 149 ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, “Manual For a Templeton Christian Mission,” 2. In Vancouver, for instance, the press was informed that Charles and Connie’s salary was $150 per week, and that any surplus at the end of the campaign would go to the National Council of Churches to be used for evangelism. Vancouver Province, 1 June 1954, 1. 150 Templeton Papers, Newspaper Clippings File, The Daily Journal, 30 July 1952, 1. 151 Ibid., The Daily Journal, 30 July 1953, 1. 152 Mutchmor, Mutchmor:The Memoirs of James Ralph Mutchmor, 110–11. 153 See ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, Box 4, File 3, Central Committee Minutes. 154 For more on the peculiarities of congregational life, see Marty, “The Congregation as a Culture.” 155 Mutchmor, Mutchmor:The Memoirs of James Ralph Mutchmor, 108–9. 156 ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, Box 4, File 3, Niagara Presbytery Committee on Templeton Mission, Minutes, 28 June 1955. 157 Templeton Papers, Advertisements, Programs and Tracts File, “Christ is the Answer! The Greater Evansville Christian Rally, January 27 through February 11, 1952,” 11. 158 United Church Observer, 1 January 1954, 16; Paul, “The Board of Evangelism and Social Service of the United Church of Canada,” 80. ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, “Manual For a Templeton Christian Mission,” 2–3. 159 ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, “Manual for a Templeton Christian Mission,” 15. Topics addressed at these meetings included “How to Get Along with People you Don’t Like,” “What to do about Trouble,” “How to Win the War of Nerves,” “How to be Good and Mad,” and “Steps to Successful Christian Living.” United Church Observer, 1 January 1954, 20. 160 Templeton Papers, Newspaper Clippings File, Presbyterian Life, 21 July 1951, 8.

242

Notes to pages 180–4

161 ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, “Manual For a Templeton Christian Mission,” 19. 162 For example, see the advertisements in Winnipeg Free Press, 8 November 1952, 12, and St. Catharines Standard, 1 October 1955, 11. In his “Suggested Budget,” Templeton recommended that $4,000 of an approximate total of $13,000 be spent on “Publicity.” ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, “Manual For a Templeton Christian Mission,” 23. 163 See, for example, Regina Leader-Post, 4 October 1952, 9; Winnipeg Free Press, 8 November 1952, 12; Calgary Herald, 29 November 1952, 9; St. Catharine’s Standard, 1 October 1955, 11. 164 ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, Box 4, File 3, Central Committee Minutes, 8 November 1955. For newspaper coverage of the Winnipeg campaign, see Winnipeg Free Press, 8 November 1952 to 24 November 1952. 165 Vancouver Sun, 31 May 1954, 1. Vancouver Province, 14 June 1954, 5. In Winnipeg, 4,000 came for the opening service (Winnipeg Free Press, 10 November 1952, 3) and a total of 70,000 attended the campaign. Winnipeg Free Press, 20 November 1952, 15; Winnipeg Free Press, 24 November 1952, 6. 166 Vancouver Province, 12 June 1954, 4; St.Catharines Standard, 8 October 1955, 9. For the presence of politicians at the Winnipeg campaign, see Winnipeg Free Press, 10 November 1952, 3. 167 ucc, vua, St. Catharines Templeton Mission, “Manual for a Templeton Christian Mission,” 25. 168 Pierson, “They’re Still Women After All,” 136, 164. 169 Only in 1967 would the percentage of women working outside the home reach 1944 levels. Prentice et al., Canadian Women, A History, 311. See also Strong-Boag, “Home Dreams,” 480. In 1955, the United Church reported 401,757 members in its Women’s Auxiliary and Women’s Missionary Societies. Cited in Finkel et al., History of the Canadian Peoples, 1867 to the Present, 421. 170 Templeton, Life Looks Up, 140–51, 156. 171 Globe Magazine, 8 March 1958, 6. 172 Templeton, Charles Templeton, An Anecdotal Memoir, 90. 173 For changes in American mainstream evangelism, see Berg, “‘Proclaiming Together,’” 61. For changes in Canada, see Mutchmor, Mutchmor: The Memoirs of James Ralph Mutchmor, 117 and Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, 186. Gauvreau and Christie have recently argued that inner piety and social evangelism constituted two streams that fed the United Church in a cyclical manner from the late 1800s to the 1940s. (A Full-Orbed Christianity.) The example of Templeton seems to extend their thesis by a decade, indicating that this process continued into the late 1950s.

Notes to pages 185–94

243

174 Templeton, Evangelism for Tomorrow, 87. 175 Berg, “‘Proclaiming Together,’” 60. It should come as no surprise that Christianity Today took up Graham’s cause – the evangelist had helped create the magazine. 176 Maclean’s, 8 November 1958, 57.

epilogue 1 2 3 4

Ottawa Citizen, 26 June 1998, A2. Ibid., 27 June 1998, B1; 28 June 1998, A10-A11; 29 June 1998, A1. Smith, The Enduement of Power, 80. For details concerning the 2001 Census, see http://www12.statcan.ca/ english/census01/products/analytic/companion/rel/contents.cfm (accessed 10 January 2006). Reginald Bibby’s analyses of Canadian religious attitudes can be found in his books Fragmented Gods, Unknown Gods, and Restless Gods. The results of a poll of Canadians’ religious attitudes undertaken by the Angus Reid firm are documented in Rawlyk, Is Jesus Your Personal Saviour?, 76, 56, 62. See also Maclean’s, 4 November 1996, 40. 5 Time, 16 December 1996, 56. 6 Pruzan, “Angels in the Ad Field,” 61 7 Toronto Globe and Mail, 5 April 1999, B11.

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Index

Aberhart, William “Bible Bill,” 116, 217n124 advertising: changes in late nineteenth century, 16; changes in mid-twentieth century, 158–9; innovations of John E. Powers, 44; innovations of P.T. Barnum, 44; Kennedy, Lasker, Calkins, Stewart and changes in early twentieth century, 77–8 Alexander, Charles, 55 Alline, Henry, 6 architecture: of churches in early twentieth century, 122–3; of churches in late nineteenth century, 36–7; of theatres in late nineteenth century, 36 Armstrong, R.A., 130–1 Bangs, Nathan, 6 Barnum, P.T. See advertising Barrett, Lawrence, 3 Barth, Karl, 167 Barton, Bruce, 132 Beall, Arthur W., 109 Bebbington, David, 125 Begbie, Harold, 100, 109 Bennett, R.B., 106, 118, 134, 138 Bibby, Reginald, 191 Bible Institute of Los Angeles, 72 biblical criticism, 24. See also Buchman, Frank; Burwash, Nathanael; Crossley,

Hugh; Hunter, John; Smith, Oswald J.; Templeton, Charles Billings, Daisy, 59 Bingham, Roland; and Canadian Keswick Bible Conference, 58; and Evangelical Publishers, 72; and Sudan Interior Mission, 58 Bland, Salem, 18–19 Bliss, Michael, 51 Blumhofer, Edith, 197n11 Bonnell, J.S., 115 Booth, Edwin, 3 Boyer, Paul, 73 Bridge Street Methodist Church, Belleville, 36–7 Brunner, Emil, 109 Buchman, Frank: advertising by, 128–9; and Anglican Church, 127; on Bible, 111–12; on biblical criticism, 111–12; birth of, 97; as chaplain, 99–100; on Christian masculinity, 132–3; and church growth, 228–9n151–5; on communism, 118–19; controversy by, 136–7; conversion of, 98; on conversion, 108; and converts, 133–4; critics of, 230n173–5; on devotional life, 111; education of, 97; on “Four Absolutes,” 105, 112–13; on Hitler, 139; hospice work of, 98; income of Oxford Group, 127–8; on leisure,

266 121–2; Oxford Group, naming of, 100, 129; planning of meetings, 126; on prayer, 112; press coverage of, 228n140; on psychology, 113–16; on religious language, 124–5; revival meeting format, 104; revival methods of, 119–26; on sanctification, 105, 112–13; on sin, 109; on upper-class converts, 133–4; and working classes, 135; on women’s leadership in revivalism, 132–3 Burwash, Nathanael: on biblical criticism, 24; death of children, 26; on evolution, 24 Calkins, Ernest Elmo. See advertising Cameron, Donald, 169 Canada Temperance Act, 28 Canadian Bible Institute, 61, 91 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (cbc), 82 Canadian Keswick Bible Conference. See Bingham, Roland Carpenter, Joel, 67, 84–5 Carwardine, Richard, 21 Case, Shirley Jackson, 118 Case, William, 6 Caughey, James, 6 children: conversion of in late nineteenth century, 18–19; mortality rates in late nineteenth century, 26; religious education of, 18 Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, 60, 76 Christian Business Men’s Committee, 158 Christie, Nancy, 199n20 Christie Street Christian and Missionary Alliance Tabernacle. See Toronto Christian and Missionary Alliance Tabernacle churches: and business practices, 66; characteristics of, 5; and Great Depression, 120; and lay participation in the early twentieth century, 121; rise of institutional church, 17, 66, 226n105 Church of the Nazarene, 146 Clark, William M., 109 clergy reserves, 7 Cleveland Colored Quartet, 81

Index Clifford, N. Keith, 221n2 commodification, 196n10 Communist Party of Canada, 118 Connor, Ralph, 49–50, 60 Conservative Evangelicals, 210n12 Cook, Ramsay, 198n19 Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (ccf), 116–17 Cornish, George, 23 Cosmopolitan Tabernacle. See Peoples Church Creighton, W.B., 136–7, 230n174 Crossley, Hugh: as “actor preacher,” 9; advertising by, 44; on afterlife, 26; bachelorhood of, 205n95; on Bible, 23; on biblical criticism and evolution, 25; controversy by, 45; conversion of, 14; on conversion, 22, 26; converts of, 46–7; on dancing, 45; education of, 14; gifts received, 39; on health, 70; image of, 34; income of, 42, 206n105, 206n106; music of, 13–15, 36, 50; as pastor, 14; Practical Talks on Important Themes, 37, 205n88; retirement of, 51; revival service format, 20; revival service organization, 40; revival service schedule, 37; on sanctification, 26–8; teaching career of, 14; on theatre, 32–3; women, response of, 40; on women’s leadership in church, 48 Dale Presbyterian Church, Toronto, 58 Darby, John Nelson, 67 Darwin, Charles, 24 Davies, Robertson, 31 Department of Temperance and Moral Reform (Methodist Church), 109 Dewart, E.H., 18 divine healing, 70–1 Dodds, Gil, 160–1 Dougall, Fred, 105–6 Drummond, Henry, 114 Eaton, Timothy, 16 Elliott, David, 209n3 Evangelical Alliance, 41–2, 206n103 evangelicalism, 195n4 Evangelical Publishers. See Bingham, Roland

Index Fellowship for a Christian Social Order, 102, 117 First Great Awakening, 6 Flavelle, Joseph, 134 Floyd, John J., 172 Freud, Sigmund, 114 Fuller, Charles, 88, 148 Fuller Theological Seminary, 88, 150 Fundamentalists: in Canada, 88, 218n137; definition of, 210n12, 211n13; The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, 57; Fundamentals of the Faith as expressed in the Articles of Belief of the Niagara Bible Conference, 56, 63; on movies, 81–2; on radio, 83; in the usa, 88; and women’s leadership in church, 220n162 Gauvreau, Michael, 199n20 Gordon, Charles. See Connor, Ralph. Gospel Tabernacles, 61 Graham, Billy: crisis of faith, 164; friendship with Charles Templeton, 164; and Oswald J. Smith, 88; Ottawa “Mission,” 1998, 188–9; Peace with God, 168; on Templeton’s move to Princeton, 164; and Youth for Christ, 148, 150 Great Depression: beginning of, 101; and mainstream churches, 102; and politics, 116 Grensted, L.W., 104, 115 Hall, Douglas, 210n3 Hamilton Spectator, 45 Hatch, Nathan, 197n11 Henry, Carl F., 163 Henry, George, 106 Hickson, James Moore, 70 historical criticism of the Bible. See biblical criticism Holme, Reggie, 104 Hooper, Ralph E., 91 Horner, Ralph, 18, 27, 203n51 Hughes, Thomas, 49, 51 Hunter, Ernest Crossley, 35, 103, 107 Hunter, John: as “actor preacher,” 9, 35, 38; advertising by, 44; on afterlife, 26; appearance of, 38, 39; on Bible, 23; on biblical criticism and evolution, 25; on Christian masculinity, 50;

267

controversy by, 45; conversion of, 14; on conversion, 22, 26; converts of, 46–7; on dancing, 45; education of, 15; gifts received, 39; Heavenly Railroad, 13, 35; home of, 39; image of, 34; income of, 42, 206n105, 206n106; music of, 13–14, 36, 50; as pastor, 15; retirement of, 51; revival service format, 20; revival service organization, 40; revival service schedule, 37; on sanctification, 26–8; on theatre, 32–3; women, response of 40; on women’s leadership in church, 48 Hutchison, William, 102 Jackson, Gilbert, 117 Jaffray, W.G., 89, 92 Johnson, Torrey, 148, 162, 164 Joint Committee for the Evangelization of Canadian Life, 126 Karinskaya, Madame Maria, 78, 80–1 Kellogg, J.C., 90 Kellogg, John Harvey, 109 Kennedy, John E. See advertising Keswick holiness, 27–8, 65, 202n49 King’s Business, 82 Kingsley, Charles, 49 Lasker, Albert. See advertising Lears, T.J. Jackson, 29–30, 50, 115, 124 Lewis, Sinclair, 119, 177 liberal Protestantism, 24 Link, Henry, 172 Lipsitz, George, 31 Little, James, 130 Macdonald, John A., 15–16, 19, 86 Machen, J. Gresham, 66 Mackenzie King, William Lyon, 117, 134, 138 Mainse, David, 193 marketing. See advertising Marks, Lynn, 49, 50 Marsden, George, 88 Marsh, Leonard, 174 Marshall, David, 198n12, 221n2 Martin, David, 198n16 Mathews, Shailer, 66 McKay, John, 164–5

268

Index

McLacklan, D.N., 103 McLeod, G.P., 130 McPherson, Aimee Semple, 62, 71, 72, 94, 197n11 Methodism: Conference evangelists, 18; 1884 union, 17; on dancing, 29; Doctrine and Discipline of the Methodist Church of Canada, 32; and doctrine of sanctification, 27; Statistical Record of the Progress of Methodism, 23; transformation in nineteenth century, 17 Metropolitan Methodist Church, 17 Miller, George Martel, 36 Molby, Thomas, 117 Monod, David, 16 Moody, Dwight L., 19, 26, 40, 97 Moody Bible Institute, 72 Moody Monthly, 72 Moore, Lawrence, 6, 115 Moral Rearmament (mra), 142, 232n197 Morrow, J.D., 58 Mott, John, 97 Mullin, Robert, 70, 84 muscular Christianity, 49 Mutchmor, James, 163–4, 178, 179, 184 National Association of Evangelicals, 88, 150 National Council of Churches, 166 National Pacific Railway, 16 National Policy, 15–16 Nealey, Lois, 209n3 Newcomb, Eliakim, 46–7 New Outlook, 136–7 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 167, 172 Northfield Student Conferences, 97, 114 Ockenga, Harold J., 88 Origin of Species, 24 Orozco, Connie (Constanci), 147 Orr, J. Edwin, 209n3 Ostrander, Richard, 111 Oxford Group. See Buchman, Frank Oxford League, 207n106 Palmer, Phoebe, 6, 202n47 Peale, Norman Vincent, 168 Penn-Lewis, Jessie, 98 Pidgeon, George, 103, 106, 131 Pierce, Ambrose, 29 popular religion, 199n21

Powers, John E. See advertising premillennial dispensationalism, 67 Princeton Seminary, 164, 165, 238n89 Print-capitalism, 6 Rader, Paul, 53–4, 61, 93 Rauschenbusch, Walter, 132 Reaching Youth for Christ, 151 Regina Manifesto, 117 revival campaigns: – Billy Graham: in Ottawa, 1998, 188 – Bosworth Brothers: in Toronto, 1921, 71, 72, 89–90 – Charles Templeton: in St. Catharines, Ontario, 1955, 179, 181–2; in Toronto, 1946, 155–6 – Crossley and Hunter: in Belleville, Ontario, 1888, 32–3; in Hamilton, 1889, 44–6; in Kingston, Ontario, 1889, 14, 25, 40–1; in Ottawa, 1888, 18–19; in Thorold, Ontario, 1893, 47; in Toronto, 1885, 15 – Fred Clarke and George Bell in Toronto, 1925, 72, 80 – J.C. Kellogg in Toronto, 1930, 90 – Oxford Group: in Fredericton, 1934, 140; in Ottawa, 1932, 106; in Preeceville, Saskatchewan, 1936, 141; in Saint John, 1934, 140; in Toronto, 1932, 106; in Toronto, 1934, 138 – Ralph Horner, 203n51 – Reuben Torrey and Charles Alexander in Toronto, 1906, 55 Rutherford, Paul, 43 Sandeen, Ernest, 67 Scofield Reference Bible, 213n52 Scopes “Monkey Trial,” 68 Shea, George Beverly, 64 Sheen, Fulton, 168 Shields, T.T., 83, 84, 88, 90–1, 136 Shoemaker, Samuel, 110, 116, 120 Simpson, Albert B., 60, 73 Sinatra, Frank, 161 Smith, Oswald J.: advertising by, 77–80; on Antichrist, 74, 215n84; on biblical criticism and evolution 68–9; birth of, 54; on Charles Templeton’s move to Princeton Seminary, 164; on church architecture, 67–8; church work in Los Angeles, 61–2, 89; colleagues of, 88; controversy by, 90–1; conversion

Index

269

of, 55; on conversion, 63–5; on Crossley and Hunter, 86; on devotional life, 65; on divine healing, 69, 71–2; education of, 56–7, 58; on films and movies, 82; on Great Depression, 92; on missions and mission rallies, 74–6; music of, 64, 80–1; on Oxford Group, 136; Peoples Church, establishment of, 62, 87; on prayer, 65; on prophecy, 72, 215n84; publications of, 71, 72, 73, 74, 83; on radio, 82–3; revival meeting schedule, 216n107; on sanctification, 65–6; on women’s leadership in church, 93–4; and Youth for Christ International, 148 Social Credit, 116 Social Gospel, 59 Spanish Flu, 69, 213n64 spiritualism, 25 Stewart, Robert, 221n2 Stewart, T. Johnson. See advertising Stout, Harry, 197n11 Streeter, B.H., 109 Sudan Interior Mission. See Bingham, Roland Sunday, Billy, 80, 93, 99, 197n11, 216n109

National Council of Churches, 166; and Presbyterian Church of the usa, 166; and press coverage, 160, 180; at Princeton Seminary, 163–6; public image of, 157; and radio, 157; salary of, 241n149; “True Happiness” song, 175; and United Church of Canada, 166; on women’s leadership in evangelism, 182; and Youth for Christ International, 148 theatre, 3, 31–2 Thomas, Ernest, 117 Toronto Bible Training School, 56, 210n11 Toronto Christian and Missionary Alliance Tabernacle, 67–8 Torrey, Reuben, 55, 65, 81–2 Trumbull, George, 88

Tamke, Susan, 64 Taylor, Frederick W., 66 Templeton, Charles: advertising by, 148, 159, 179–81, 242n162; at Avenue Road Church, 147; on biblical criticism and scientific discoveries, 172; on Billy Graham’s contribution to evangelism, 185; birth of, 144; as cartoonist, 145; chalk talks of, 146; and Christian Business Men’s Committee, 158; on Christian masculinity, 160, 162, 183; and Church of the Nazarene, 146; on communism, 153, 169–70; conversion of, 145–6; on conversion, 151–4, 173; departure from evangelism, 184–7; on devotional life, 171–2; education of (high school), 145; honorary doctorate from Lafayette College, 166; as journalist, 186; on “juvenile delinquency,” 152–3, 169; “Look Up and Live” television program, 166; marriage to Connie Orozco, 147; music of, 156, 176; and

Ward-White, F.C., 131 Watts, Charlie, 45 Watts, Jimmie, 135 Weatherhead, Leslie, 115, 172 Weber, Timothy, 67 Wesley, John, 204n66 Western Recorder, 127 Whitefield, George, 197n11, 204n66 Witness and Canadian Homestead, 105–6 Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 28, 48 Woodcock, H.F.D., 131 Woodsworth, J.S., 59, 116 Wright, Henry, 99 Wyrtzen, Jack, 234n18

United Church of Canada: Board of Evangelism and Social Service, 103; formation of, 101; mass revivalism in 1950s, 11; New Outlook during tenure of W.B. Creighton, 136–7 Van Die, Marguerite, 199n20 Vincent, John Heyl, 207n106

Young Men’s Christian Association, 49, 97 Youth for Christ International: and Christian masculinity, 160–1; establishment of, 148; European Invasion, 149; press coverage of, 149