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American freedom in religion: an argument for endowed territorialism

September 21, 2010 by westportexperiment

Below are (yet) a few more extracts from William Smith’s Endowed Territorial Work (1875). Smith certainly was on to something in his critique of the so-called American success story, allegedly vindicating religious Voluntaryism. From a confessionally Reformed standpoint, time seems only to have further confirmed his thesis. With Christianity subordinated to the laws of supply and demand, populism has compromised ministerial fidelity and has accelerated the decay of orthodoxy.

As I dwell on it, is there really a twofold problem, traceable to something other than gold standard Reformational thought?  Our spiritual fathers fought for biblical freedoms, not absolute ones. They preached freedom from papal tyranny, freedom from slavery to human traditions, freedom to form a private judgment on the letter of Scripture. But there was a trajectory of freedom that pushed further still – the Enlightenment. That freedom knew no restraints, because it was not ultimately tethered to any authority besides its own.

Within the pale of Protestantism, it seems to me that this non-Reformational lust for human autonomy reared its ugly head in the walls of the confessing Church. That was Arminianism. While Dort repressed it for a time, it lived on, and in America it burst into open flame in the ministry of Charles Grandison Finney.

At the same time, a more seemingly innocuous manifestation of Enlightenment freedom was gaining ground in Reformed communions. That was Voluntaryism. What was deceptive about that system was perhaps its frequent affiliation with theological Calvinism. No free will soteriologically, but free choice ecclesiastically. Interestingly, American Presbyterians as early as 1729 embraced Voluntaryism, before it even became a major force in British evangelicalism. Great men, too – some of them my heroes. But Smith’s reflections here, plus more than a century’s worth of all too painful confirmation, draws me to the conclusion that a major fault in American Christianity lies in this twofold concession of ground to the Enlightenment by the sons of the Reformation.

Read this, and see what you think.

* * * * *

“Dr Magee, formerly Rector of Enniskillen, now Bishop of Peterborough, in his trenchant treatise on the Voluntary system, proves with reference to the current fables of its success in the great Western world, that out of a total of 42,359 churches, there were no fewer than 12,829 without any settled pastoral ministry,— that out of a population of twenty-seven millions, more than a third were not even under the influence of pure Christianity, and much less than a sixth were members of any pure Christian Church, — that upwards of five millions either make no profession of any religion whatever, or are open and avowed infidels — that over and above these, another million connected with Mormonism, Spiritualism, or other such monstrous abortions, cannot be regarded as Christians at all—that not less than one hundred different denominations, some of them calling themselves by the most ridiculous names, and glorying in the most absurd peculiarities of faith and practice, are enumerated in the American Census—that the occupants of the pews exert the most degrading and pernicious influence on the occupants of the pulpits, who dare not, as they value their salaries or the place they fill, denounce national sins, and who, as the result of this subserviency, were the great abettors and upholders of slavery so long as it subsisted in the South—that with churches crowded in the cities, hundreds of thousands are living on the territory without Sabbath or sanctuary influences, without a pastor, and without any one to care for their souls—and that in America, as elsewhere, Voluntaryism tends to promote Congregationalism and commercialism, instead of a system of faithful and devoted pastoral superintendence in connection with the ministry of the Gospel” (229-30).

[Quoting a minister in western Canada] “I must pass by the other still greater evil of the Voluntary system; I mean the evil effect which must be the natural consequence of the want of independence in the clergy themselves upon the doctrines of the Gospel. The multitude of sectarian creeds produces a very general indifference to all religion’” (232-33).

“Voluntaryism, therefore, it is very evident, does not change its hue on the other side of the Atlantic. It is fruitful of the same evils there as here. With all the free scope and fair-play it enjoys under the starred and striped Republican banner, it leaves tens and hundreds of thousands uncared for. With a Beecher there, as with a Spurgeon here, planted in a large and populous city, enshrined in a temple where fashion helps to swell the votaries, and sensationalism or genius impregnates the winged words spoken from the pulpit with power to awe, entrance, or excite, Voluntaryism will win for itself such victories as impress the vulgar or unthinking with the idea that it is the system best fitted to succeed” (233).

Posted in Gathered Church Ecclesiology, Parish in American Context, Parish Theory & Practice | Leave a Comment »

Stipulations for Mercy Ministry

September 17, 2010 by westportexperiment

Here’s a good post over at Feeding on Christ on practical guidelines for helping the poor.  Thankfully, there are still people out there in favor of intelligent charity!

Posted in Benevolence & the Diaconate, Thomas Chalmers | Leave a Comment »

The core of endowed territorialism

September 15, 2010 by westportexperiment

“For thorough and effective endowed territorial work, two requisites are indispensable. In the first place, the whole country must be divided into districts, each containing such an amount of population as shall be manageable by a minister and kirk-session; and provision must be made for easily rearranging these districts from time to time, so as to make them tally with the needs of a fluctuating and increasing population. In the second place, there must be an endowment fund applicable to each district, so as to render the minister so far independent of those among whom he labours, and more especially to make his services available for that portion of the population who care for none of these things, or who cannot pay for religious ordinances” (William Smith, Endowed Territorialism, p. 136).

Posted in Parish Theory & Practice | Leave a Comment »

The standard of Reformed territorial missions

September 13, 2010 by westportexperiment

William Smith’s chapter “Endowed Territorial Work as Contrasted with Voluntaryism” in his Endowed Territorial Work (1875) is just so full of really profound, meaty material with surprisingly contemporary relevance that I’m just going to cut and paste a large swath here.  If you’re confessionally Reformed and zealous for mission that doesn’t pander, read this and read on.  You absolutely must cut your teeth on Smith; and if you’re hungry for more, by all means pick up Chalmers! 

A few things I love about this passage.  First, Smith represents the Reformed parish in all its vigorous masculinity.  Unlike the gathered church-model of Voluntaryism (19th century de-establishmentarianism), this construct keeps the church at the center of the community regardless of demographic and socio-economic shifts.  The Reformed parish church stands as a steady bulwark; it holds the standard like an intrepid solider on a contested hill.  Tragically, churches over the last 100-200 years have retreated from the inner-cities.  Not so the Reformed parish church.  And I would think that those who are won over to the ideals of ‘the auld Kirk’ would head unbanward to retrieve long-surrendered ground. 

Not only is the Reformed parish church steadfast, as Smith points out, but it is consciously God- and not man-pleasing.  The tendency of the alternate system yielding to market principles is to fawn and pander.  The latter tends to discharge its duty to men in the sight of God.  True, the Reformed parish church is designed to serve men.  But it serves them as that institution invested with the keys of the Kingdom, assigned to a definite geographic charge, and answerable to its King.

Related to this, Smith makes something clear that I haven’t yet seen in Chalmers.  He points out how territorialism tends to retard the downgrade of confessionalism.  If this model in principle resists the forces of market demand, then at least there is a kind of barrier raised against the inroads of populist latitudinarianism. 

Last – and so much more could be said – I love how Smith shows that the old Reformed parish plan smothers the cult of personality in its infancy.  Being Presbyterian, it takes overseer parity seriously both inside and outside the local context.  And since it respects without worshipping geographic, ecclesiastical boundaries, it promotes diligent attendance on the means of grace on faithful, not necessarily sensational pastors.  Oh, and there is no chapter on sheep-stealing in its playbook.

Alright.  Enough of Ives; enter Smith.

* * * *

Voluntaryism cannot, on its own footing, maintain itself in [poor] districts. Innumerable instances have occurred in which Voluntary chapels, planted originally in districts occupied by industrious and church-attending families, have been removed from these districts to more affluent and attractive neighbourhoods so soon as, from the extension of the town and the concentration of poverty and crime, there occurred an influx into these districts of a poor or vicious population. Parish churches remain permanently in their first position. Though erected originally for the rich, who occupied as their palatial mansions tenements now converted into stores and warehouses, and now surrounded by drunkenness, pauperism, filth, and crime, they maintain their places unchanged, and continue to ring out their Sabbath-bell warning against the sins that prevail around them. Parish ministers, true to their trust, do not abandon the degraded poor whether they will hear or whether they will forbear.”  The fold and the shepherd remain, whatever change the flock may undergo.”  But Voluntaries, more fickle in their affections and less restricted in action, change continually the sites of their chapels, and follow on the skirts of a paying population. Edinburgh exhibits examples of this. Glasgow exhibits still more. But perhaps the most notorious scene of such unworthy and recreant migrations is to be found in Liverpool, where more than fifty such deserted sites may be traced on the map of the town, and where thirty-three chapels have occupied a hundred and thirty different sites— the congregations, in their corporate capacity, remaining the same.  The principle that operates in this way to the abandonment and neglect of the poorer districts, that the wealthier may be courted and cultivated, is surely not a right or commendable principle. It does not harmonise with the spirit of the Gospel, nor can it fulfil the command or do the work of Him who said, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither ” (i.e., to the Gospel feast) “the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. … Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house be filled.”

Dissenters, as a rule, do not systematically visit the poor. It is not part of their system. Their energies are sufficiently tasked otherwise in recruiting their ranks from the multitude of respectable artisans and small shopkeepers who, in our overgrown town parishes, are driven from the national Church by the lack of sufficient accommodation, or by the system of exclusive and proprietary pews that has sprung up, fungus-like, in some quarters. If any Dissenting congregation does adopt the system of local house-to-house visitation, the manner and the meaning of it will soon be detected. The zeal of many of the visitors will be found to expend itself in plying with fulsome flattery, or cajoling with astute misrepresentation, the more respectable adherents of other Churches, if haply they may be seduced to speak the shibboleth and swell the numbers of their congregation. The degraded classes will be lightly passed by. The clamant poor will be silently left, or actually certificated and commended, to the care of the parish minister. The system that countenances, necessitates, or involves such procedure as this, is a selfish, hollow, and rotten system. It cannot cope with the adverse circumstances of society; it cannot overcome the evil of the world.

The system of endowed territorial work, on the contrary, is in strict keeping with Christ’s commission to go and make disciples of all nations. It accords with the plan on which the apostles and first promulgators of the Gospel founded Churches in different places. It conserves the general principles laid down in the New Testament for the guidance of the Church to the end of the world. It approves itself to sound reason as best adapted alike for diffusing generally, and for maintaining permanently, the power of the Gospel in any land. It secures for the pastor a proper sphere, and invests him with the requisite influence, authority, and independence. It places the office-bearers and members of his congregation in a right relationship to him, one to another, and towards such as are without. It marks out for them all a field, the faithful cultivation of which at once exercises the graces and gifts, enhances the joys and rewards, of those that cultivate it, and adds to the trophies of the great Husbandman into whose garners its crops are gathered.  On all these grounds, and on many more which time would fail fully to specify, endowed territorial work approves itself as the system which, most consistent with Christian principle, is in practice found to be most effective and successful.

On the minister it devolves the burden of territorial responsibility, by assigning to each, at his ordination and induction to a parish, a certain amount of well – defined and overtakable, work.  This is its grand underlying principle. Practically, the principle has been departed from in many instances, and especially in our large towns, in consequence partly of the increase of population without a corresponding increase of parishes and parish churches, partly of the rivalry of Dissenters resulting therefrom. But wherever and from whatsoever cause the principle has not been fairly and fully wrought out by the national Church, it has been to the ultimate loss of that Church, and to the detriment of true religion. “Where the principle is strictly acted on—and it ought to be so in every case, both in town and in country parishes—the minister naturally and of necessity feels an interest in his work of a totally different kind from that which is possible in the case of him who acts on the Voluntary principle. The Voluntary minister is bound to the people who are attracted to his ministry by his eloquence and ability in the pulpit. The distance from which these are drawn is limited only by the range of the influence of that attraction. The greater his ability, or popular gifts rather, the wider is the scope of his attractive influence, and consequently the larger the area from which his congregation is drawn, and the vaster and more promiscuous the mass of population among which they are scattered here and there. His relations to his flock are personal only, and change continually with its shifting and fluctuating units. The greater his success and the larger his congregation, the less intimate and the less influential will these relations necessarily become. Whereas, in the case of the minister bound to a territory of manageable extent, his relations not only to the members of his congregation, but to all the inhabitants of that territory, are of a totally different character. They are more solid, intimate, and permanent. He belongs to them. He is officially and solemnly bound to serve them. The consciousness that he is so, and the consequent concentration of his attention and efforts on the scene of their daily avocations, impart to him a feeling of property in them. They belong to him. They are his people. There is thus insensibly created between him and them a link of friendly and familiar correspondence, which leads to the most beneficial effects. Thoroughly acquainted with the dimensions of his field of duty, and aware of the extent of his responsibility, the minister enters upon his labours with alacrity and good hope, and is stimulated and encouraged to steady perseverance in them by the comfortable and enlivening sense of being able to overtake them. Visiting his parish from house to house, he not only ministers on the best footing to those parishioners who by attendance in his church have expressed a desire for his ministrations, but, without any appearance of intrusiveness, without the possibility of offence, and without prejudice to the message he bears, he obtains easy access to home after home, where one circumstanced and accredited as he is can alone preach the Gospel with effect to those so utterly lapsed and careless that no amount of mere pulpit attraction will ever draw them to Christianity.  Besides, what wide and effectual doors are opened for his usefulness by the feeling which pervades the sphere of his activities that in the time of need the poor may apply to him, assured of sympathy and friendly aid—that in the season of sickness he is ready at hand to visit the most abandoned and depraved on their bed of languishing or pain, and to counsel and direct them when conscience at last finds her voice, when their fear cometh as desolation, and when distress and anguish come upon them!  The people know that they can in such cases confidently count upon his succour. Their mutual intercourse and acquaintanceship strengthen this feeling from day to day, till at last, by the cementing force of sympathy, the minister is throned, as Chalmers says, “in a moral ascendancy over his district;” and from his very position there goes forth a commanding influence for the highest ends, that reaches every home and heart within it.

For it is not the good of the poor only which the system of endowed territorial work is calculated to promote. That system is as much required and as well adapted for behoof of the careless and godless among the wealthier classes, who, but for it, would in the great majority of cases be left entirely to themselves, without instruction, counsel, or reproof, in the matter of their spiritual concerns. They are quite as liable as their poorer brethren to fall away altogether from religion. God has formed their hearts alike. By nature they are equally corrupt and depraved. The temptations of wealth and luxury and refinement are not less powerful in seducing men from the paths of piety than the temptations peculiar to a low, crushed, animal condition. The rich, therefore, need the visits and the ministrations of a faithful minister whom they respect, as much as the poor do. But in nine cases out of ten the visit of a minister acting on the Voluntary system would only give offence to the wealthy, create in them additional prejudice against religion, and so issue in doing far more harm than good. Whereas, on the other hand, the minister acting on the territorial system has, in the very nature of his work, a passport to every house in his parish. The reason of his visit being simply the discharge of incumbent duty, will be readily recognised and regarded with respect by the highest in common with the lowest; and, in point of fact, the relations which, on this ground, have been established between the landed aristocracy and gentry on the one hand, and the ministers of the Church of Scotland on the other, have been fruitful in manifold benefits, not only to the rich themselves, but to all classes. They have helped in some measure to neutralise the tendencies of these later revolutionary days towards the disintegration of society, and to keep class united to class by the bonds of mutual sympathy and respect.

The benefits of endowed territorial work have indeed for some generations been obscured by the partial extent to which the system has been maintained in this country.  Even at the period of the Reformation, the statesmanlike idea of Knox in regard to it was never fully realised. Through lack of sufficiently qualified ministers, and more particularly in consequence of the ruthless spoliation of the Church’s patrimony already referred to, the parochial economy of the Church was never, up to the measure of his policy and wish, made sufficiently large and comprehensive for the population of the country. Instead of one thousand only, as he desired, more than three thousand were assigned, on the average, to each parochial charge. In the years that followed, matters grew gradually worse and worse in this respect. In the course of time the population was trebled, and yet no appreciable addition was made to the territorial machinery of the Church. In the towns, where the principal increase of population took place, and where Church extension was chiefly required, the evil arising from neglecting this extension was in particular greatly aggravated by the all but total relinquishment there of all regard to territorial limits in the management of such churches as existed, and in the membership and discipline of their several congregations. These congregations, drawn indiscriminately from all quarters of the town, and from whatsoever parishes formed or environed the town, speedily lapsed into a state of semi-independency. In most instances, their numbers and demands were such as tasked all the energies and took up the whole time and attention of their respective ministers. In consequence of this, the territories assigned to their pastoral care remained untended and unvisited. For all practical intents and purposes, their boundary lines might have been erased from the map. The great mass of their population fell out of all ecclesiastical oversight. And thus the territorial system, sinking into something very like desuetude in many of the most important and conspicuous parts of the country, has not had fair play, and by many is supposed to have proved a failure, simply because it has never been tried.

Another thing which has operated strongly to the damage and disparagement of the territorial system is the overlapping competition of Voluntaryism. By virtue of the tolerant spirit of the times, and because of the liberal character of our civil constitution, Dissenters participate largely in the civil privileges flowing to all that profess religion out of the existence of an endowed territorial Church, although formally they refuse to be parties to any compact between Church and State, such as makes such a Church most easily possible. They derive no trivial advantage from the publicly recognised standard of truth and duty necessarily maintained by the national Church, and to some extent they share also in the benefits arising generally out of its parochial economy and organisation. In point of fact, as I have already indicated, Dissent flourishes only when and where the national Church is strong. Were that Church annihilated to-morrow, and were Voluntaryism thenceforward to become the universal order of the day, the first effect of the change would be a sapping of the chief strength there is in Voluntaryism, which is traceable mainly to the efforts of rivalry.  Gradually, every standard raised by it now, would be lowered further and further. Salaries now forced up by jealous comparison with stipends would become beautifully less. Systems of doctrine, kept pure and unrelaxed because of the continued existence in authority of the Westminster Confession, would, from time to time, be altered in one point after another, to suit the shifting sentiment of the hour. Work now stimulated into general activity by the arbitrary routine of official labours would degenerate into selfish and time-serving efforts.

And yet Dissent, owing her existence and much of her activity to the territorial system, does her very utmost to degrade the character and destroy the benefits of endowed territorial work—like the ivyplant, which, as it climbs, tends to choke the stalwart tree that supports it. Erecting here and there places of worship, maintaining in them ordinances which in most cases are nowise distinguishable from those dispensed by the national Church, and drawing to her, for various reasons, many nurtured in different parishes, she poaches at her capricious pleasure, now in this parish, now in that, and prosecutes, where the work will pay, enterprises that overlap and jar with proper territorial agencies, so as to prevent these from producing the benefit which, left alone to themselves, they would certainly do. What experience is more common at the present day than that of the earnest parish minister who, carefully mapping out his territory into convenient districts, and assigning to each such a staff of labourers as, under the presidency and direction of pious elders and deacons, could sufficiently attend to all the wants, both temporal and spiritual, of the whole population, finds that no sooner is the work thus planned and provided for begun, than it is imitated in its method and machinery by the emissaries of some neighbouring Voluntary congregation, who, previously satisfied with work of a congregational kind, select as a locality for their systematic cultivation not one altogether neglected, which would be good and praiseworthy on their part, but preferentially one which he already is sufficiently caring for? It may seem invidious thus to speak of such labours, by whomsoever and in whatsoever field they may be prosecuted. Those who are only superficially acquainted with such territorial work may imagine that the spiritual wants of any district can never be entirely overtaken, and that therefore no amount of work bestowed on it can ever be superfluous, or any number of workers in excess of its actual requirements. Such persons may consequently be inclined to attribute the remarks now made to jealous or spiteful feeling towards Dissenters.  But, in point of fact, all earnest workers in such fields must know well that there arises no greater hindrance to success in endeavouring to reclaim the outcast and elevate the fallen, than that which is caused by the clashing interference of two or three sets of similar agencies overlapping each other in one locality; and when, as too often happens, Dissenting agencies expend their principal care and strength on fields previously occupied by others, and in attempts to proselytise the children and dependants of those already more or less closely connected with other communions, the ultimate result of their efforts in this way can be only detrimental to the cause of religion in the locality, and tend to damage, not to promote, the success of thorough territorial work.

Posted in Gathered Church Ecclesiology, Missiology, Parish Theory & Practice | Leave a Comment »

The 19th century roots of McDonaldization?

September 7, 2010 by westportexperiment

Few in confessional Reformed circles would question the ‘McDonaldization’ of the Church thesis.  So much of evangelical Christianity in America has caved in to consumerism.   But historically, I have to ask whether we’re at the end of a long journey begun by 19th century Voluntaries?  Or was it perhaps commenced inadvertently by the 17th century devotees of “gathered churches?”  The following quote from William Smith (a la Chalmers) at least raises the question, given that his central critique of Voluntaryism is its commericialization of the Church:

“But the radical and fatal defect of the Voluntary system lies in this, that from its very nature it tends to occupy and engross itself with the fat places of the land, leaving the lean neglected and uncared for—that it absorbs and isolates into self-supporting confederations the very portion of the population that ought to be caring for the perishing souls of others less happily conditioned—that the more successful it is in any field, the more neglectful must it be of those persons connected with that field who most require the ministrations of the Gospel —and that its besetting and generally irresistible temptation is to make the grace and ordinances of religion a matter of mere competitive shopkeeping on the one hand, and of ready-money purchase on the other” (William Smith, Endowed Territorial Work, 100-1).

Yet, I fear that Smith’s critique of consumerism cuts both ways.   

Smith wrote at a time when the integrity of evangelicalism had not been radically vitiated.  Many (most?) Voluntaries were Calvinist.  Smith really was criticizing all Voluntaryism, Calvinist or not, because it tended to make the faith once delivered gravitate to where the money is.  Voluntaryism of whatever stripe simply had no internal mechanism to ensure that everyone in the land, including the working classes, were provided the pure ordinances.  The old Kirk, with its principle of endowed territorialism, did. 

Reformed churches in North America are de facto if not de jure gathered churches.  And while many of us have been kept from the abyss of crass McDonaldization (so far), yet we tend to exist only where we can be financed.  Does this explain not only the temptation to dilute our confessionalism, but also why there are so few confessionally Reformed churches in urban America?

Posted in Commerce & Christianity, Finance & the Maintenance of Ministry, Gathered Church Ecclesiology, Parish in American Context, Parish Theory & Practice, Thomas Chalmers | Leave a Comment »

“Dr. Thomas Chalmers and the Unchurched Masses”

September 1, 2010 by westportexperiment

The following essay by A. T. Pierson, successor to Charles Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, is a nice little overview of Dr. Chalmers’ heroic Christian labors among the urban poor.  Before wading into Pierson, two observations from the essay. 

While I’m very familiar with the old West Port story, one of Pierson’s statements raised yet another angle on territorial outreach that I hadn’t considered in awhile.  The old, Reformed territorial plan helps reduce evangelistic recidivism. 

Second, I’m reminded of how Chalmers’ care for the unchurched aimed to ‘elevate’ that culture, if you will, into the culture of the Church.  Here’s a positive model for modern Reformed missions.  Cultural sensitivity, o.k.  But faithful mission ultimately means the inculturation (reformation?) of the outsider.  That may seem patronizing; but then again, so is mission.  For more on that, read on!

* * * *

DR. THOMAS CHALMERS AND THE  UNCHURCHED MASSES.

By A. T. Pierson, D.D. (Presbyterian), Philadelphia.

Dr. Thomas Chalmers is a name especially worthy of a permanent record, as one of the men who led the way in the practical solution of that great problem of our civilization: How to deal with the masses in our great cities.

At his sixty-fifth year we find this greatest of Scotchmen on fire with all his youthful ardor, in this mission to the masses in Edinburgh, in which, as in Ephesus, the gold, silver, and precious stones of the sacred fanes and palaces were in strong contrast to the wood, hay, stubble of the huts and hovels of the poor. With sublime devotion Chalmers at this advanced age, when most men retire from active and arduous toil, entered upon the most difficult experiment of his life, that he might demonstrate by a practical example what can be done for the poor and neglected districts in a great metropolis.

The West Port, in the “old town” of Edinburgh, was the home of a population, whose condition may be described by two words, poverty and misery.  He undertook to redeem this heathen district by the Gospel, planting in it schools and a church for the people, and organizing Christian disciples into a band of voluntary visitors.  The name “territorial system” was attached to the plan as he worked it, and has passed into history under that sonorous title.

In St. John’s parish, Glasgow, he had already proved the power of visitation and organization.  Within his parochial limits he found 2,161 families, 845 of them without any seats in a place of worship.  He assigned to each visitor about fifty families.  Applications for relief were dealt with systematically, and so carefully yet thoroughly that not a case either of scandalous allowance or scandalous neglect was ever made known against him and his visitors.  There was a severe scrutiny to find out the fact and the causes of poverty, to remove necessary want and remedy unnecessary want by removing its cause.  The bureau of intelligence made imposture and trickery hopeless, especially on a second attempt.  And not only was poverty relieved, but at a cost which is amazingly small.  While in other parishes of Glasgow it averaged £200 to every 1,000 of the population, and in many parishes of England it averaged a pound for every inhabitant, in St. John’s it was but thirty pounds for 1,000 people!

It was an illustration of heroism in these latter days, when a man passed threescore years, whose public career both with his pen and tongue had made him everywhere famous, gave up his latter days to elevate the physical, mental, moral and spiritual condition of a squalid population in an obscure part of the modern Athens.  His theory was that about 400 families constituted a manageable town parish, and that for every such territorial district there ought to be a church and a school, as near as may be, free to all.  This district in West Port contained about this number of families, which were subdivided into twenty “proportions,” each containing some twenty families.

A careful census, taken by visiting, revealed that of 411 families forty-five were attached to some Protestant church, seventy were Roman Catholics, and 296 had no church connection.  Out of a gross population of 2,000, 1,500 went to no place of worship; and of 411 children of school age, 290 were growing up entirely in ignorance.  It is a curious fact that these 411 families averaged one child each of appropriate age for school; and that of these 411 children there were about as many growing up untaught as there were families without church connection.  This careful compilation of statistics revealed that the proportion of ignorance and of non-attendance at church correspond almost exactly; in other words, families that attend a place of worship commonly send children to school, and the reverse.

Another fact unveiled by this effort at city evangelization was that about one fourth of the inhabitants of this territory were paupers, receiving out-door relief, and one-fourth were habitual, professional beggars, tramps, thieves, and riff-raff.

Here was a field indeed for an experiment as to what the Church could do in her mission among the masses. Chalmers was hungry for such an opportunity; it stirred all his Scotch blood.  So he set his visitors at work.  But he did not himself stand aloof.  Down into the “wynds” and alleys and “closes” of West Port he went; he presided at their meetings, counselled them sympathetically, identified himself with the whole plan in its formation and execution, while his own contagious enthusiasm and infectious energy gave stimulus to the most fainthearted.  He loved to preach to these people, not less than to the most elegant audiences of the capital, or the elect students of the university.  He would mount into a loft to meet a hundred of the poorest, as gladly as ascend the pulpit of the most fashionable cathedral church, crowded with the elite of the world’s metropolis.  And those ragged boys and girls hung on his words with characteristic admiration.

Two years of toil, with the aid of Rev. W. Tasker, enabled Dr. Chalmers to open a new free church in this district; the Lord’s Supper was administered, and out of 132 communicants one hundred were trophies of the work done by him and his helpers in that obscure district. With a prophetic forecast Chalmers saw in this success the presage of greater possibilities, and a practical solution of the problem of city evangelization; and hence he confessed it was the joy of his life, and the answer to many prayers.

The plan pursued by Dr. Chalmers was not at all like the modern evangelistic services, an effort spasmodic if not sporadic, preaching for a few weeks in some church edifice or public hall or tabernacle, and then passing into some other locality, leaving to others to gather up results and make them permanent.  From the most promising beginnings of the sort, how often have we been compelled to mourn that so small harvests have been ultimately gleaned!  He organized systematic work that looked to lasting results.  The plowman and the sower of seed bore his sickle and watched for the signs of harvest.  And whenever the germs of a divine life appeared, they were nurtured, cherished, guarded, and converts were added to the Church, set at work, kept under fostering care, and not left to scatter, wander at will, or relapse into neglect.

As to his mode of dealing with pauperism, the sagacious Chalmers saw that while a ministry of love to the poor, sick, helpless, was a first necessity, it would be unwise and hurtful to their best interests to encourage them to depend on charity. The Church must not be an asylum in which indolence and incompetence and improvidence should take refuge. The poorest must be educated to maintain, not to sacrifice, self-respect, and must be compelled to form and maintain habits of self-help, industry, economy, thrift. Instead of clothing the poor with the half-worn garments of the better classes, he would have them taught to save money worse than wasted on tobacco, drink and vicious indulgence, and buy their own garments.  And the results of this wise policy were seen in the gradual and rapid improvement in appearance of the attendance at church—rags gave way to respectable raiment, and it was not the castoff clothing of their betters, either.

Chalmers had no less an ambition than to ameliorate and finally abolish pauperism; and his success in St. John’s parish, Glasgow, had proven that he was master of the situation; and no one can tell what results might have followed but for the poor law, enacted in 1845, which, by the admission of a statutory right to public relief, encourages improvidence, weakens family ties among the poor, conduces to a morbid satisfaction with a state of dependence, and thus sows the seed of the very pauperism it professes to relieve and reduce.

[Taken from The Pulpit Treasury: An Evangelical Monthly, Vol. 5, 1887-88]

Posted in Benevolence & the Diaconate, Parish in American Context, Thomas Chalmers, Vignettes from 19th Century District Visitation, Visitation Evangelism | Leave a Comment »

A critique of Voluntaryism

August 31, 2010 by westportexperiment

Recently, I’ve picked up William Smith’s Endowed Territorial Work again.  Truly great stuff.  Robust, Reformed missiology from a disciple of Thomas Chalmers.

The following is a quote in which Smith takes a swipe at 19th century Voluntaryism, which is basically now the status quo most evangelical churches.  Every church is functionally on its own, sink or swim, and is fully subject to the laws of the religious marketplace.  Or, as Smith succinctly puts it, Voluntaryism is the synthesis of “congregationalism and commercialism.”  The net effect is the degradation of the holy ministry.

It also may help orient the reader to mention that Smith has just argued for “necessity of rearranging the whole country into parishes of manageable extent and population, and the likeliest means by which this can be accomplished in present circumstances.”  That’s the parish principle a la Chalmers, also called territorialism.  In this chapter he contends for a coordinate principle with regards to finance, that is, “the provision for each parish of such an endowment or stipend for the minister as shall make him so far independent of those to whom he preaches, and render his services available for the benefit ot such of his parishioners as are either too poor or indisposed to pay for Gospel ordinances” (182).

So, enjoy! – or be challenged, either one.  But at the very least, think.

* * * *

The eminent success of the Free Church of Scotland, not only in the home, but also in the foreign field of evangelistic activity, is frequently quoted as an unanswerable argument in favour of Voluntaryism as against endowment; and on certain platforms it has become customary, for those decrying union with the State, to invite the members of the National Church, to surrender the privileges therein enjoyed, and to imitate the exodus by which their former brethren went forth to enjoy exemption from the burdens connected with permanent endowments. Now, far be it from me, and from every one who has true Scottish blood in his veins, to say one word in disparagement of the sacrifices, exertions, and successes of the Free Church, or to seek to detract from the praise justly due to the skill and statesmanship with which the great founders and leaders of that influential denomination have shaped its policy and guided its career.  But their great success is undoubtedly due in no small degree to the institution by Dr Chalmers of what is called the Sustentation Fund, which, though dependent for its supplies on free contributions from year to year, is in its principle and effects diametrically opposed to Voluntaryism, and does, so far as is possible in the circumstances, embody and carry out the principle of endowment.  It is not so secure as absolute endowment, and therefore the latter is not to be lightly, or except for very much stronger reasons than have yet been advanced, abandoned for it; but the income it provides for Free Church ministers is not dependent merely on the voluntary donations of those that wait upon their ministry. It is drawn in large measure from a source which is really fixed and permanent in its character, and which, though less secure and exempt from the possibility of variableness than that provided by the piety of remote ancestors and invested in substantial property, is yet sufficiently settled and sure to fulfil many of the purposes of endowment. It affects at least the constitution of tha relation between pastor and people, so far as to mitigate in a very considerable degree the evil inherent in mere Voluntaryism, by which the minister is made the minion and the slave of those whom he is bound as the ambassador of Christ to “exhort and rebuke with all authority.”

This mitigation, to whatever it amounts, is, so far as it goes, an immense gain. The evil it abates is most pernicious in its results. As a system, the evil tends to produce mere vapouring orators and popular demagogues and tinkling cymbals, rather than judicious expositors or valiant defenders of the truth and faithful pastors. It renders the exercise of sound and wholesome ecclesiastical discipline next to impossible, and it fills the advertising columns of Saturday newspapers with announcements of sermons and orations couched in clap-trap [absurd or nonsensical] phraseology, the puffery of which is simply disgusting to serious minds, and cannot but be fearfully deteriorating to the spiritual quality of any man, forced to seek by such unworthy expedients to fill his chapel and increase the coppers cast into his treasury.

That this is more frequently the result of Voluntaryism than some may suspect; that  “The pulpit’s laws the pulpit’s patrons give, / And those who live to preach, must preach to live,” is clear from the testimony bome by John Angell James, himself one of the most illustrious of Dissenting ministers.  He says: “In many of our churches the pastor is placed far below his level; he may natter like a sycophant, beg like a servant, or woo like a lover; he is not permitted to enjoin like a ruler.  His opinion is received with no deference; his person is treated with no respect; and, in presence of some of his lay tyrants, he is only permitted to peep and mutter in the dust.”

Posted in Gathered Church Ecclesiology, Parish Theory & Practice, The Sacred Ministry | Leave a Comment »

Boston’s discipline

August 20, 2010 by westportexperiment

Thomas Boston wrote in his Memoirs that he had been troubled ever since beginning his ministry “with several things in our constitution [of the Church of Scotland], especially the manner of admitting to the Lord’s table, and planting of churches” (338).  Being appointed to a committee to review such matters, Boston took the opportunity to redress these problems.  The following is an overture from his pen, entitled “Of admission to the Lord’s table, and debarring from it,” contained as an appendix in his Memoirs (487-88).  While there are many contextual disconnects with our modern circumstances, there is much instructive here for the admission of new members and the role of catechesis in the process. 

* * * *

” 1. Admission to the Lord’s table, and debarring from it, being acts of church discipline and government in a particular congregation, belong to the session of the congregation, and are not to be exercised by any minister or elder by themselves, nor any society of ministers and elders in an extrajudicial capacity.

” 2. Besides the ordinary examinations in parishes, it is meet there be diets of examination particularly for non-communicants, and specially those of the younger sort. And for this end, that once every year at least, especially before the celebration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the congregation, ministers, from the pulpit, exhort and stir up non-communicants to serious godliness, and the use of the means of knowledge; and intimate to all such as desire to be prepared to partake of that ordinance, that they give in their names to him, and wait on the diets of catechising to be appointed for such.

” 3. The names of such as offer themselves to be instructed, in order to their being admitted to the Lord’s table, are to be kept in a roll separate from that of the whole congregation, and to be brought into the session, and read before them; that it may be recommended to all the brethren, to have a particular eye on the inrolled, each especially on those of his own district; to excite, admonish, and exhort them, to a walk becoming the gospel, and the high privilege they are aspiring to.

“4. When a non-communicant removes out of one parish into another, it were fit that he produce sufficient testimonials from the place of his former abode, before he be inrolled amongst those who have offered themselves to be instructed as above said, in the congregation to which he comes.

” 5. When one desires to be admitted to the Lord’s table, he is in due time to intimate his desire to the session, that they may maturely consider of it. But it were fit, that the party should in the first place acquaint the minister with his purpose; who, if he finds he has not made a competent proficiency by the pains taken on him, in the examinations of non-communicants, or otherwise, may advise him yet to forbear for a time.

” 6. The session entering on this affair, a strict inquiry is to be made among the members, particularly at the elder or elders of the district which the party belongs to, concerning his life and conversation; whether he be guilty of any scandal; owns, submits to, and ordinarily attends, the ordinances of Christ, the public and private worship of God; if he be of a pious and sober deportment, and reputed to be a worshipper of God in secret; and if he be the head of a family, whether he worships God in his family.

” 7. If nothing be found on that part to hinder his admission to the Lord’s table, the session convening, on a set day, in the place of public worship, and the doors being open, that all the communicants, and those who have offered themselves to he instructed as ahove said, may have access, if they please, he is, in face of session, to give proof of his knowledge of the principles of the Christian religion, and particularly of the nature, use, and ends, of the ordinance of the supper, by making a confession of his faith, either in the way of a continued discourse, or by answering questions thereupon proposed by the minister.

” 8. And here special consideration is to be had of some who are known to be serious, and willing to learn, yet are weak ; namely, that the questions be proposed to them, so as they may be answered by Yes, or No; or that the truth and error be both laid before them, and they asked, which of them they believe.

” 9. The trial being ended, the session is to judge, whether the party be endowed with competent knowledge of the principles of the Christian religion, or not.

” 10. And if they be satisfied in this also, the party is to be put explicitly to consent to the covenant (whereof he desires the seal), to be the Lord’s, live unto Him, and serve Him all the days of his life, by answering expressly the following (or the like) questions. 1. Do you believe the doctrine of the Shorter Catechism of this church, so far as you understand the same, to be the true doctrine agreeable to the holy Scriptures, and resolve, through grace, to live and die in the profession of the same?  2. Do you consent to take God in Christ to be your God, the Father to be your Father, the Son to be your Saviour, and the Holy Ghost to be your Sanctifier; and that, renouncing the devil, the world, and the flesh, you be the Lord’s for ever?  3. Do you consent to receive Christ as He is offered in the gospel, for your prophet, priest, and king; giving up yourself to Him, to be led and guided by His word and Spirit; looking for salvation only through the obedience and death of Jesus Christ, who was crucified without the gates of Jerusalem; promising, in His strength, to endeavour to lead a holy life, to forsake every known sin, and to comply with every known duty?  4. Lastly, Do you promise to subject yourself to exhortation, admonition, and rebuke, and the discipline of the church, in case (which God forbid) you fall into any scandalous sin?

“11. The party having professed, consented, and promised, as above said, is to be admitted to the table of the Lord, by a sentence of the session; which is to be recorded in their register, and an extract thereof allowed to be given him, when called for.

” 12. It were fit, that the names of all those who, from time to time, are admitted to the Lord’s table, be inrolled in a bound book belonging to the session.

“13. And how often soever that ordinance be administered in a congregation, the aforesaid roll of those who have at any time been admitted, is always to be read over distinctly, in presence of the session, some competent time before, and the members required to declare, if they know anything against the life and conversation of any of them.

“14. If anything be objected, the session is to order private exhortation or admonition, or sist the accused before them, as they shall see ground, and find the matter to require. And this is to be so managed, as that the accused be sisted, as aforesaid, on report concerning the private exhortation or admonition made, before the time of the administration of the sacrament. But those who have once been orderly admitted, are at no time after to be denied the privilege they were admitted to, except in the case of scandal; for which they are to be debarred by the session, till they have removed the scandal, according to the discipline of the church: Which done, they are restored to their former church-state.”

Posted in Catechesis, Church Order & Discipline, Thomas Boston | Leave a Comment »

Chalmers’ parish visitation notes (Kilmany, 1813-1815)

August 16, 2010 by westportexperiment

The following is an extract from Thomas Chalmers’ personal notes from house to house visitation in his first parish of Kilmany, with comment by William Hanna, editor of his Memoirs.  It well illustrates the Scottish Reformed legacy of the spiritual care for all souls in a defined geographical area as well as the ancillary custom of pastoral journaling.  Here are the records of a true, spiritual physician.

A few specifics are worthy of special observation.  Note the frequent entreaties raised to the Lord, reminiscent of another memoir-writer, Nehemiah (Neh. 2:4, 5:19, 6:14, 13:14, 22, 29, 31).  Here is one devoting himself to the ministry of the Word and prayer.  We also should observe amid these ‘ejaculatory’ prayers an ongoing willingness to engage in self-criticism.  May we too rest in the Lord for whom we labor, and not in our labors themselves.  They are fraught with sin and imperfection – “but our sufficiency is of God” (2 Cor. 3:5). 

Last, Hanna includes an overview of Chalmers’ practice of catechizing, in the well-worn path of the old Church of Scotland practice.  His method was evidently very gracious and dialogical, yet it clearly honored the high authority vested in the Catechism’s biblical doctrines.  Firmness in confession, pastoral finesse in method.  A delicate balance indeed!

* * * *

“February 15th, 1813.—Visited Mrs. B., who is unwell, and prayed. Let me preach Christ in all simplicity, and let me have a peculiar eye on others. I spoke of looking unto Jesus, and deriving thence all our delight and confidence. O God, give me wisdom and truth in this household part of my duty.

“February 21st.— Visited at Dalyell Lodge. They are in great affliction for the death of a child. I prayed with them. O God, make me wise and faithful, and withal affectionate in my management of these cases. I fear that something of the sternness of systematic orthodoxy adheres to me. Let me give up all sternness; but let me never give up the only name by which men can be saved, or the necessity of forsaking all to follow Him, whether as a Saviour or a Prince.

“March 25th.— Visited a young man in consumption. The call not very pleasant; but this is of no consequence. O my God, direct me how to do him good.

“June 2d.— Mr. ——— sent for me in prospect of death; a man of profligate and profane habits, who resents my calling him an unworthy sinner, and who spoke in loud and confident strains of his faith in Christ, and that it would save him. O God, give me wisdom in these matters to declare the whole of thy counsel for the salvation of men. I represented to him the necessity of being born again, of being humbled under a sense of his sins, of repenting and turning from them. O may I turn it to my own case. If faith in Christ is so unsuitable from his mouth because he still loves sin, and is unhumbled because of it, should not the conviction be forced upon me that I labor myself under the same unsuitableness?  O my God, give me a walk suitable to my profession, and may the power of Christ rest upon me.

“June 4th.— Visited Mr  — again. Found him worse, but displeased at my method of administering to his spiritual wants. He said that it was most unfortunate that he had sent for me; talked of my having inspired him with gloomy images, but seemed quite determined to buoy himself up in Antinomian security.  He did not ask me to pray. I said a little to him, and told him that I should be ready to attend him whenever he sent for me.

“August 9th.— Miss — under religious concern. O my God, send her help from Thy sanctuary. Give me wisdom for these cases.  Let me not heal the wound slightly; and, oh, while I administer comfort in Christ, may it be a comfort according to godliness. She complains of the prevalence of sin. Let me not abate her sense of its sinful ness. Let me preach Christ in all his entireness, as one that came to atone for the guilt of sin, and to redeem from its power.

“March 15th, 1814.—Poor Mr. Bonthron, I think, is dying. I saw him and prayed, after a good deal of false delicacy. O my God, give me to be pure of his blood, and to bear with effect upon his conscience. Work faith in him with power. I have little to record in the way of encouragement. He does not seem alarmed himself about the state of his health, and, I fear, has not a sufficient alarm upon more serious grounds. It is a difficult and heavy task for me; and when I think of my having to give an account of the souls committed to me, well may I say, Who is sufficient for these things?

“March 23d.— Mr. Bonthron was able to be out, and drank tea with us. I broke the subject of eternity with him. He acquiesces; you carry his assent always along with you, but you feel as if you have no point of resistance, and are making no impression.

“March 26th and 27th.—Prayed each of these days with Mr. Bonthron. I did not feel that any thing like deep or saving impression was made. O Lord, enable me to be faithful!

“April 3d.—Visited John Bonthron.

“April 5th.—Prayed with more enlargement with John than usual. I see no agitations of remorse; but should this prevent me from preaching Christ in His freeness?  The whole truth is the way to prevent abuses.

“April 6th and 8th Visited Mr. Bonthron.

“April 9th.—Read and commented on a passage of the Bible to John. This I find a very practicable, and I trust effectual way of bringing home the truth to him.”

The next day was the Sabbath, on the morning of which a message was brought to the manse that Mr. Bonthron was worse. While the people were assembling for worship, Mr. Chalmers went to see him once more, and, surrounded by as many as the room could admit, he prayed fervently at his bedside. No trace remains of another visit.

Prosecuting his earlier practice of visiting and examining in alternate years, he commenced a visitation of his parish in 1813, which, instead of being finished in a fortnight, was spread over the whole year. As many families as could conveniently be assembled in one apartment were in the first instance visited in their own dwellings, where, without any religious exercise, a free and cordial conversation, longer or shorter as the case required, informed him as to the condition of the different households. When they afterward met together, he read the Scriptures, prayed, and exhorted, making at times the most familiar remarks, using very simple yet memorable illustrations. “I have a very lively recollection,” says Mr. Robert Edie, “of the intense earnestness of his addresses on occasions of visitation in my father’s house, when he would unconsciously move forward on his chair to the very margin of it, in his anxiety to impart to the family and servants the impressions of eternal things that so filled his own soul.”  “It would take a great book,” said he, beginning his address to one of these household congregations, “to contain the names of all the individuals that have ever lived, from the days of Adam down to the present hour; but there is one name that takes in the whole of them—that name is sinner: and here is a message from God to every one that bears that name, ‘ The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.'” Wishing to tell them what kind of faith God would have them to cherish, and what kind of fear, and how it was that, instead of hindering each other, the right fear and the right faith worked into each other’s hands, he said, “It is just as if you threw out a rope to a drowning man. Faith is the hold he takes of it. It is fear which makes him grasp it with all his might; and the greater his fear, the firmer his hold.” Again, to illustrate what the Spirit did with the Word: “This book, the Bible, is like a wide and beautiful landscape, seen afar off, dim and confused; but a good telescope will bring it near, and spread out all its rocks, and trees, and flowers, and verdant fields, and winding rivers at one’s very feet. That telescope is the Spirit’s teaching.”

His own records of one or two of these visitations are instructive:

“February 18th, 1813.—Visited at Bogtown, Hawkhill, and East Kinneir. No distinct observation of any of them being impressed with what I said. At East Kinneir I gave intimation that if any labored under difficulties, or were anxious for advice upon spiritual and divine subjects, I am at all times in readiness to help them. Neglected this intimation at Hawkhill, but let me observe this ever after.

” February 16th.— A diet of visitation at ——. Had intimate conversation only with M. W. I thought the —— a little impressed with my exhortation about family worship, and the care of watching over the souls of their children. I should like to understand if —— has family worship.

” March 9th.—Visited at ——. The children present.  This I think highly proper, and let me study a suitable and impressive address to them in all time coming.

“May 19th.— Visited at ——. I am not sure if Icould perceive any thing like salutary impression among them; but I do not know, and perhaps I am too apt to be discouraged. C. S. and J. P. the most promising. O my God, give me to grow in the knowledge and observation of the fruits of the Spirit and of His work upon the hearts of sinners.

“August 9th—Visited at Hill Cairney. Resigned myself to the suggestions of the moment, at least did not adhere to the plan of discourse that I had hitherto adopted. I perceived an influence to go along with it. O my God, may this influence increase more and more. I commit the success to Thee.”

In examining his parish he divided it into districts, arranging it so that the inhabitants of each district could be accommodated in some neighboring barn or school-house. On the preceding Sabbath all were summoned to attend, when it was frequently announced that the lecture then delivered would form the subject of remark and catechizing. Generally, however, the Shorter Catechism was used as the basis of the examination. Old and young, male and female, were required to stand up in their turn, and not only to give the answer as it stood in the Catechism, but to show, by their replies to other questions, whether they fully understood that answer. What in many hands might have been a formidable operation, was made light by the manner of the examiner. When no reply was given, he hastened to take all the blame upon himself. “I am sure,” he would say, “I have been most unfortunate in putting the question in that particular way,” and then would change its form.  He was never satisfied till an answer of some kind or other was obtained. The attendance on these examinations was universal, and the interest taken in them very great. They informed the minister of the amount of religious knowledge possessed by his people, and he could often use them as convenient opportunities of exposing any bad practice which had been introduced, or was prevailing in any particular part of his parish. Examining thus at a farm-house, one of the plowmen was called up. The question in order was, “Which is the eighth commandment?”  ” But what is stealing?”  “Taking what belongs to another, and using it as if it were your own.”  “Would it be stealing, then, in you to take your master’s oats or hay, contrary to his orders, and give it to his horses?”  This was one of the many ways in which he sought to instill into the minds of his people a high sense of justice and truth, even in the minutest transactions of life.

“November 30, 1813.—Examined at . J. W. and B. T. both in tears.  The former came out to me agitated and under impression.

“January 20th, 1814.—Had a day of examination, and felt more of the presence and unction of the Spirit than usual.

“January 21st—Had a day of examination. Made a simple commitment of myself to God in Christ before entering into the house.

“February 8th—Examined, and have to bless God for force and freeness.  D. absenting himself from all ordinances. Let me be fearless at least in my general address, and give me prudence and resolution, O Lord, in the business of particularly addressing individuals.  I pray that God may send home the message with power to the people’s hearts.

“February 23d.—Examined ——. A very general seriousness and attention. B. and his wife still, I fear, very much behind.

“April 5th.—Examined at P.  I can see something like a general seriousness, but no decided marks in any individual.

“March 8th.— Examined at S.   The man P. B. deficient in knowledge, and even incapable of reading; the father of a family too.  I receive a good account of ——. Oh! that they may be added to the number of such as shall be saved.

“July 2d.—Examined with more enlargement and seriousness.  I feel as if there was an intelligence and good spirit among the people. O God, satisfy me with success; but I commit all to Thee.

“July 27th—Examined at ——. The family afraid of examination, I think, and they sent me into a room by myself among the servants. This I liked not; but, O God, keep me from all personal feeling on the occasion. I brought it on myself by my own accommodating speeches. I have too much of the fear of man about me. Never felt more dull and barren. I feel my dependence on God. I pray for a more earnest desire after the Christianity of my parish, and, oh may that desire be accomplished. O God, fit a poor, dark, ignorant, and wandering creature for being a minister of Thy word!  Uphold me by Thy free Spirit, and then will I teach transgressors Thy ways.”

The family here referred to was that of a farmer recently settled in the parish, and who, unfamiliar with the practice of examination, felt at the first a not unnatural reluctance to be subjected to it. On his return to the manse, Mr. Chalmers jotted down the preceding impressive notice of his reception and its result. In the afternoon of the same day he went back to the family; told them that, as they had not come to him in the morning, he had just come to them in the evening to go over the exercise with themselves. The frank and open kindness of the act won their instant compliance, and brought its own reward.

Posted in Catechesis, Experimental Religion & the Cure of Souls, Thomas Chalmers, Vignettes from the Old Parish Way, Visitation Evangelism, Visitation Journaling | Leave a Comment »

The secularization of the ministry

July 28, 2010 by westportexperiment

Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), one of the greatest 19th century preachers, began his ministry in the rural parish of Kilmany in Fife, Scotland.  He began that ministry, strangely enough, as an unconverted man.  Under the sway of Moderatism, Chalmers approached the ministry as a country gentlemen.  To him, it was a cushy job with ample liesure to pursue his real passion – mathematics.

When, however, the Lord converted him, his whole paradigm of ministry shifted.  His charge in Kilmany was no longer a sinecure, but a full-time commission from the Most High.  At that point, he threw himself into his labors with a weighty sense of pastoral obligation.  “Woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel!”

The following quote, in a letter from Chalmers to a correspondent, reflects his high view of the ordained ministry.  For context, it comes at a time when a larger field of usefulness was opening up to him at the Tron Church in Glasgow.  In this letter, Chalmers explains that he would only consider the post if it was eventually shorn of all those administrative duties that were typically laid on city preachers in those days.  He would not go if his spiritual office was thus to be ‘secularised.’

The secular employment laid upon your clergy to the degree mentioned by you, will not restrain me from accepting it. But I will not oblige myself to any portion of such employment, however small. I may find it prudent to take a share; but in its least degree, I count it a corrupt encroachment on the time and occupations of a minister: see Acts, vi., 4. And I shall only add, that I know of instances where a clergyman has been called from the country to town for his talent at preaching; and when he got there, they so belabored him with the drudgery of their institutions, that they smothered and extinguished the very talent for which they had adopted him. The purity and independence of the clerical office are not sufficiently respected in great towns. He comes among them a clergyman, and they make a mere churchwarden of him. I have much to say upon this subject; and I do not despair, if we shall have the felicity of living together, of obtaining your concurrence in this sentiment. It shall be my unceasing endeavor to get all this work shifted upon the laymen; and did I not hope to succeed in some measure, I would be induced to set my face against the whole arrangement at this moment. I shall only say of my own dear parishioners, that they have expressed their value for me on no other ground than pure ministerial services; and it is hard to leave such a people for another, who may not be satisfied unless I add to my own proper work a labor which does not belong to me (Memoirs 1:337).

Two obserations.  First, Chalmers was not against ministerial administration.  But that administration was largely a service of delegation, so that it could be free to do what it was designed to do – pray and preach!   Moreover, most of the supervision had to be delegated as well, or the minister would fill up his time with managing human resources.  Little better, really, than “waiting on tables” (Acts 6:2)!

On that score, it does seem that Chalmers’ talk of shifting administrative duties to ‘laymen’ needs a bit of context.  If I am not mistaken, Chalmers had first in mind ruling elders, those presbyters devoted not to the regular ministry of the Word but to the government of the Church alongside teaching elders.  He probably also meant deacons beneath the elders of the kirk session.   So his terminology might mislead some of us.  While he did seem to entertain a higher view of the ministry of the unordained believer – what others might more customarily call a ‘lay person’ – yet, ‘shifting’ all the work on the laymen in the first place meant utilizing those in the ruling and diaconal offices to their full capacity.  That as an aside.

But the second observation is that in Chalmers’ day, you had a higher view of the ministry across the board within evangelicalism.  Evangelical ministers in many cases – especially in the established Church – often resigned to the reality of civil responsbilities that took them away from their study and closet.  Chalmers stood out as a minister who would not cave in.  What we often have today in American evangelicalism is this same secularization, this distraction of the ministry of the Word and prayer to the administration of temporal matters.  But the difference, as I see it, is that most do not even ‘cave in.’  They willingly sign up for the managerial ministry!  This is not the seclarization of the office from without, but from within.  We are our own worst enemy.

May the Lord raise up a new army of ministers who will not yield to secularization of the ministry, or sell its birthright for a bowl of lentils.  May He purge it, purify it, and spread it far and wide for the good of souls, and to the honor of the Lord Christ.

Posted in Experimental Religion & the Cure of Souls, The Sacred Ministry, Thomas Chalmers | Leave a Comment »

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