God's Man for the Gilded Age: D. L. Moody and the Rise of Modern Mass Evangelism

Christian Century, Dec 27, 2003 by David R. Stewart

By Bruce J. Evensen. Oxford University Press, 232 pp., $29.95.

WHETHER WE consider him an evangelistic, civic, media or other kind of figure, it is difficult today to comprehend the phenomenon that was Dwight Lyman Moody. To cite an example, Erik Larsen's bestseller, The Devil in the White City, which tells the parallel stories of a serial killer aim Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition, makes no reference to Moody whatsoever. Yet the Chicago backdrop of tension and bitter conflict between light and darkness, vice and civic righteousness, wealth and poverty is incomplete without Moody. One might just as well try to talk about Gettysburg without mentioning Robert E. Lee.

Bruce Evensen's approach is ideal for overcoming this incomprehension. Rather than offering another biography (there have been dozens already), Evensen, a professor at Chicago's DePaul University, focuses on the 1873-1877 period when the power of Moody and his message converged with sophisticated organizational skills and with newspapers and their readers. When Moody began his evangelistic campaigns in England in 1873, the elements of what we now call "networking" were just coming together, and the press was still making up its mind whether to ignore, mock or advocate for the rustic American preacher. But by the time Moody launched his city-to-city campaign in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and Boston he had fully hit his stride, and all the amateurism was gone.

Leading clerical, business and political figures were happy to be seen on Moody's platform. Their zeal for civic and social reform and for spiritual revival trumped any misgivings about his style and theology. The most widely read newspapers clamored to identify themselves with the great preacher: his message was good for the populace, and the "up close and personal" accounts of his ministry had a wonderful effect on circulation. Moody thanked the press effusively wherever he went, and it is not hard to see why. Evensen's tireless sleuthing through newspapers of the time tremendously enriches his book. That the reader gets more vivid profiles of the numerous editors, magnates and clerics than of Moody himself serves the book's purpose.

It's easy for readers of our time to call to mind the most common objections to Moody and his work: too great an emphasis on personal salvation, the human will, emotion and so on. One also wonders whether the sheer brute force of Moody's message and methods--"this is the moment of destiny"--had an unintended "strip-mining" effect which has made it harder for subsequent generations of evangelists to gain a hearing. But Moody brought the gospel, its claims and implications, directly into the center of public discourse, and commended unflinchingly its benefits to the highest and lowest in society.

Reviewed by David R. Stewart, associate librarian in research services at Princeton Theological Seminary.