“THE NEW EVANGELISM."

Otago Witness, Issue 3757, 16 March 1926, Page 8

“THE NEW EVANGELISM."

ADDRESS EY THE REY. T. YUILLE. OPENING OF THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE. The formal opening of the 1926 session of the Theological College of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand took place in the library at Knox College Wednesday afternoon. T’Ue Rev • Hector Maclean, convener of th<s Theological College Committee, presided, and there vas a large attendance of friei ds of the college. The proceedings opened with the singing of a hymn of invocation and prayer offered by Mr Maclean, after which one of the students read the fifteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel.

The Chairman welcomed those present, and particularly the new students. He said that this year the number attending was smaller than usual but the reason for that was that five prospective students had remained behind in the University to take honours. At the same time they must not close their eyes to the fact tfiat there were very few men coming, forward to the ministry. Looking over past history it seemed that there had always been a similar shortage, and they had continually to face the same type of difficulty. This was the jubilee year of the college, and the occasion would be fittingly celebrated on May 25, 26, and 27. The Assembly Lad given them permission to seek to raise a sum of £IO,OOO to provide a fund for scholarships, and he trusted the appeal would be success-

ful. The inaugural address was delivered by the Rev. Tulloch Yuille, who chose as his subject “The New Evangelism.” The very title, he said, at once suggested the difficulties of the subject. Was there anything really new in the world, and especially in the message of the Church? Then, too, what was meant by "evangelism?” What made a ministry “evangelical” was the indefinable atmosphere of it There was no reason why an evangelical ministry should be an unscholarly ministry. The work of an evangelical preacher was bis oft recurring emphasis on Jesus Christ, a living Lord, a living Saviour, and a living Friend. Jowett was an evangelical preacher of the school of the new evangelism. He preached the lordship of Christ insistently and also His redemptive power. There was something about an evangelical preacher that constrained his hearers to face the question of their personal relation to the Lord. Whether silent or spoken, always the appeal was there, arresting and commanding. The appeal must be made in harmony with the life and thought of the day. The preacher would have a clearer message about God if he had learned what modern Biblical criticism had to say. Preaching should be done authoritatively in bold sweeping assertions. Intellectual difficulties were best dealt with in quiet talk outside the pulpit. Preachers became better evangelists when they were better scholars. The evangelical forces of the church had everything to gain and nothing to lose by a growing knowledge on the part of everybody of all the researches of the modern study of the Bible. One of the great gifts to evangelism of this modern critical study of the Bible was a deeper conception of sin. The new evangelism was eager to save men from their sins, not that they might be saved for Heaven only, but for the earth to help to save the rest of mankind. The fiery old prophets had led out the new evangelism in a crusade against social sins. Evangelism to be effective dare not be divorced from modern conditions of living. The message of the new evangelism was a social message, and in this respect probably differed from the old evangelism, which laid emphasis on the individual At the same time the social message of the new evangelism necessarily had its individual aspect. It set out to reclaim the individual, and every evangelist must plainly placard before the eyes of all men "Christ and Him crucified.’ The new evangelism was out to get women r.nd men pledged to a daily intercourse with the living Christ. The way to reach Him was through the historic Jesus, and so the new evangelism welcomed all patient and scholarly research to fill in all the details of the portrait of the Man (ft Nazareth. It was the duty of the ordinary rank and file of the church s ministers to be evangelists, but he would not decry the work of special evangelists. Every minister should be an unfailing evangelist to his own people. He wished that all the students of the church studying to be ministers would study to be evangelists. He sometimes thought he detected a bent in the Presbyterian Church towards what was called a scholarly ministry. Let them be as scholarly as they could in their own study, and their own thinking, but when the day came when they had to give up some of the scholarly ambitions to do the work of an evangelist let them take up that cross gladly. In what ways could they do thework of an evangelist ? First of all through preaching in which they could lead their people to the point of self-surrender oy many a different road. That would mean much study of the Old and New Testaments, of psychology, of philosophy. Sometimes, too, the minister might be a special evangelist, organising meetings of Ins own. Every returning communion season wouiu furnish an opportunity for evangelism. The Sunday school should be the happy bunting ground" of the minister evangelist He looked forward to the day when the Church in New Zealand would have a junior communicant membership. He saw no reason why they should question the •authenticity of the religious decision of a child, . 8 “?. of 11 years. The incompleteness of their knowledge did not vitiate the honesty of the act of will He thought they would find more back-sliding and more deterioration among the middle-aged than among children. The new evangelism would find a spheie in girls and boys’ clubs, in the Student Movement, in the Young Mens and Young Women’s Christian Associations, in orphanages, and homes. The call of the age, it seemed to him, was for evangelism and more evangolism. Teaching by itself was cold and passionless. This world to-day was topsy turvy, littered with broken ideals. It was looking for a controlling ideal that would enslave all men in its glad free bondage. The Church of Christ must leap into the erene of conflicting ideals and aay Apart from Christ ye can do nothing. Tho Rev. Dr Cumming, president of the Senatus, moved a hearty vote of thanks to Mr Yuille on behalf of all present. Mr Yuille he said had struck some timely notes in the words he had addressed to them. The vote was carried in the customary fashion.^ The proceedings closed with the singing of another hymn and the WtWcUction.