Only a would-be preacher is entitled to pen an editorial like this! For others to attempt it could be construed as sour grapes or even scoring cheap jibes at the expense of those who are doing their lonely best in difficult days. But the one asking the question readily admits that he himself is part of the problem.
Just where have all the preachers gone? Certainly they are no longer thick on
the ecclesiastical ground, even if, so we are assured, their predecessors once
were. Such as remain have a status in society that is derisory — which,
in fact, might yet turn out to be a blessing in disguise. No one in his right
mind would enter the ministry today if kudos and material advancement were his
motivations. In all probability he will be preaching to declining numbers. Still
worse, he is likely in many cases to be facing hearers who, if they do not actually
question the legitimacy of what he is doing, at least harbour doubts as to whether
the whole function that he deems his calling has had its day. He may well be
confronted by rising pressure groups within and without his congregation who
are arguing for alternative ways of worship, all of which seem to have in common
the opinion that while preaching per se might have been the accepted front line
activity of the church decades ago things have now moved on.
Without doubt there was a time when there existed a crop of preachers who moved
the nation and changed its face. At the risk of only slight over-simplification
it could be argued that the history of Protestantism from Luther onwards could
be written in such terms. Certainly he would be a bold but rather foolish secular
historian who refused to recognise the impact made on the national character
of peoples on both sides of the Atlantic by men of whom it can be said quite
simply that they were preachers.
But that is history. Emphatically it is not present day reality. So again I
pose the question, Where have all the preachers gone? And, lest someone be prompted
to respond, What in any case does it matter? let me develop my argument a little.
Whenever God has been pleased to revive His church He has raised up preachers—sometimes
a veritable host of them. Occasionally the order seems to have been reversed
in that by a preacher being raised up revival has resulted. But either way has
led to a multiplication of men who could and who did preach. True, the numbers
of men whom you could describe as great preachers — the Luthers, Latimers
and Calvins, the Whitefields, Wesleys and the Rowlands—might, comparatively
speaking, have been few. But they soon spawned a host of lesser men, imbued
with the same spirit and speaking with a like authority. And by such men the
face of many a nation was changed.
Of nowhere has that been more true than our own land of Wales. Who can fail
to be moved by the testimony of Thomas Charles Edwards, brilliant Oxford student
and scion of one of the most respected families the land has produced:
I was in College at the time studying great matters, but never having realized them in my experience as living truths. I knew Butler’s arguments for a future state, and Paley’s Evidence of Christianity. I felt their force as arguments…
But here came two plain men from Cardiganshire to Bala, and preached Jesus Christ simply and unaffectedly, without much culture or eloquence: but they had more. Eternity pervaded the service, heaven was in the place…no one needed Butler’s arguments or Paley’s evidence. The change that I experienced was ample evidence to me of the Divinity of Christianity. Before, I was a mass of damnation, and in the service I became a new creature.
The two plain men ‘who had more’ were the carpenter cum Calvinistic
Methodist minister, David Morgan, together with his young companion, Evan Phillips,
The apostle Peter has his own way of making the same point: ‘…them
that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.’
It was never mere eloquence that was the secret — although in many an
instance that undoubtedly was present. Most certainly it was not oddity of appearance
or peculiarity of utterance that commanded men’s attention. Rather, men
of that calibre possessed the vertical dimension that can neither be successfully
imitated nor meritoriously earned. Always it is something given from above.
And that, so I argue, is what we are missing today. What often passes for preaching
in evangelical and reformed circles is a travesty of the term. Surely the crying
need of the hour is first of all for us ‘preachers’ to recover an
awareness of a dimension that is now largely absent from our well-intentioned
ministrations.
But why has it gone? Reaction certainly set in against the animated, loud style
of pulpiteering, that was overloaded alternately with pathos and sentiment,
long on ‘puff’ but short on substance and that ascended eventually
into a contrived hwyl that in caricature came to describe the typical Welsh
preacher. For what it is worth a parallel decline in the public estimate of
Welsh oratory can be observed from the genius of Lloyd George, via the political
diatribes of Nye Bevan down to the efforts of the latter day ‘Welsh windbag’
(as derisively the English press used to refer to Neil Kinnock).
It was all too emotional, not to say sentimental, so ran the argument. Plain
talks for plain men was what was needed. Politically it began with the fireside
chats of Stanley Baldwin, but the infection rapidly spread into the churches.
For a while some might have dallied with entertainment as the panacea for our
ills, but the emptiness of all this began to be recognised half a century or
more ago when men began to rediscover the rich heritage of doctrinal truths
that somehow had been hidden out of sight since the age of Spurgeon. Such a
rediscovery should have resulted in a transformation of effective proclamation.
But that was not the case. In many an instance entertainment was replaced by
boredom. Which, sad to say, largely continues today.
Christ is not preached, although many truths about Him may be mentioned. Orthodoxy
is back, thank God, but not the power. The vertical dimension continues to be
conspicuous by its absence. I have sometimes thought that the largely forgotten
eighteenth century heresy of Sandemanianism has raised its unrecognised head
in our churches, partly provoked by frustrated preachers. That teaching so emphasised
the sufficiency of intellectual assent to the propositions of the gospel that
it minimised, if it did not altogether disregard, the crucial importance of
a professing Christian having a vital experience of the Saviour.
It may be that what underlies much of this whole situation is an assumption
— I hesitate to call it a conviction — that the days of preaching
as a relevant instrument of evangelism are numbered, if not over. In its place
has come the more casual approach of the study group (more, or in some cases,
less biblical in content). Its great feature is that people are never to be
pressurised. They discover, they learn, they ask the questions and hopefully
find the answers for themselves. Unless such groups are wisely led the element
of confrontation has gone. Men are not put on the spot as they should be by
preaching. On the contrary, they are in the driving seat. This, we are told
is the twenty-first century way. And so it may be. But is it the biblical way?
The latter is not a technique to be learned, still less a facility to be acquired
by attendance at courses run by ‘experts’. It is a blessing sent
from heaven.
To be aware that one does not have it may well prove to be the first step along
the costly road to obtaining it. But to be totally unaware or, worse, dismissive
of such a dimension is hardly likely to set one on one’s knees pleading
with God to bestow it.
‘You know the trouble with that man, don’t you?’ said the
greatest preacher I have ever had dealings with as we were discussing another
preacher well known to both of us. He continued, ‘He never has a bad Sunday!’
And as one who was used to far more ‘bad’ Sundays than ‘good’
ones, I knew what he was driving at!
So what is to be done about it? And herein lies one of the greatest differences
between then and now. When preachers of old realised that they lacked this divine
plus they knew that there was only one place to find it — the throne of
God, which was where they went seeking Him who alone was able to bestow that
which they lacked. So must it be with us. There is every incentive for us to
do so. Did not Christ Himself encourage us with the promise ‘… how
much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him’
(Luke 11:13)? And congregations should likewise petition the same throne of
grace for their preachers, perhaps enquiring as they do so whether there is
anything about them that hinders such prayers being answered.
Graham Harrison