{"id":88149,"date":"2019-10-21T00:06:29","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T05:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=88149"},"modified":"2019-10-18T13:24:08","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T18:24:08","slug":"two-evangelists-farewell-to-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2019\/10\/21\/two-evangelists-farewell-to-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Evangelists’ Farewell to God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

When I was studying the patterns of apostasies (Finding Faith, Losing<\/strong><\/a><\/em> Faith<\/em><\/strong>),<\/em> I found Ruth Tucker\u2019s book so helpful and this post draws from her book. (paid links)<\/p>\n

By Ruth Tucker<\/p>\n

\u201cSuddenly from head to foot, Robert was shaken with what seemed like a magnetic thrill of heavenly delight and floods of glory seemed to pour through him, soul and body.\u201d Hannah wanted the same experience and later during a revival meeting went down to the altar, armed with handkerchiefs, thinking she would be overcome with weeping. Nothing happened. By her own account, she remained \u201ca dry old stick\u201d Both were evangelists: Robert Pearshall Smith walked away from faith; Hannah Whitehall Smith did not. I tell their story in chapter 3 of Walking Away from Faith<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chapter 2 is titled \u201cA Tale of Two Evangelists: Billy and Chuck.\u201d Billy Graham tells how his uncertainty in becoming a evangelist \u201ccame to a climax\u201d on a moonlit night at a retreat center in the San Bernardino Mountains. There he gripped his Bible and prayed: \u201cFather, I am going to accept this as Thy Word\u2014by faith<\/em>\u2014faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts.\u201d His good friend and fellow evangelist Chuck Templeton had said to Billy: \u201cYou can\u2019t do that. You don\u2019t dare stop thinking about the most important question in life. Do it and you begin to die. It\u2019s intellectual suicide.\u201d Chuck went on to study at Princeton and later walked away from faith.<\/p>\n

Chuck was a pastor and evangelist from Toronto, who worked with Billy in Youth For Christ, a movement that grew rapidly after World War II. When the YFC evangelistic team flew from Chicago to Europe and the British Isles, photographers captured the handsome young men and their cheering fans. \u201cNo building was large enough,\u201d writes Chuck in Farewell to God<\/em>, \u201cto house the youngsters who flocked to the meetings.\u201d It was a heady time. They soon went their separate ways, however, Billy preaching in large stadiums, Chuck picking up the slack in smaller towns. The turning point for Chuck was a private discussion on the merits of Christianity with the captain of the Yale debating team. Chuck was ready for him and he scored every point. But he could not rid himself of the realization that he didn\u2019t believe his own arguments: \u201cThere was no real choice. I could stay in the ministry and live a lie or I could make the break. My wife and I packed our few possessions in a rental trailer and started on the road back to Toronto where, nineteen years earlier, I had begun.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do these historical accounts inform evangelists and pastors\u2014and lay people\u2014today? Is there a way to both privately and publicly navigate questions and doubts? Or are we teetering on a tight rope: falling away or committing intellectual suicide?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tale of the two Smiths is quite different. Hannah, raised a strict Quaker, became consumed with doubt soon after she married Robert: \u201cI began to wonder if God could be all-powerful since the creatures He created seem to have so little power to resist evil.\u201d And why, she might have asked, would God snuff the life out of her little five-year-old Nellie? But amazingly that was what revived her faith: \u201cMy precious child, my angel child, thou shalt indeed be, I trust, a link to draw me up to heaven.\u201d The deaths of more children would follow.<\/p>\n

Contacts with Baptists and Methodist Holiness groups set the stage for the Smiths\u2019 beginning their own revival meetings. During a camp meeting Robert had felt the fire of Holy Spirit baptism<\/a>. The following year, all eyes\u2014and prayers\u2014were on Hannah. The hours passed. Nothing. She later concluded (no doubt using Robert as her prime example) that \u201cemotional blessings\u201d were not stable and permanent as were the spiritual truths that sprang from Scripture. Robert suffered from depression balanced by emotional highs, no doubt bi-polar with no meds yet to help him. In 1873, after their eighteen-year-old son had died from typhoid fever, Robert sailed to England, hoping for a cure for his depression. The following year, Hannah joined him and they both preached at \u201cHigher Life\u201d conferences. He was the evangelist, she the Bible teacher, that is, until she lost her false teeth.<\/p>\n

Soon after they arrived back home, Robert returned to Europe and within weeks was on a high, writing home that \u201cAll Europe is at my feet.\u201d Hannah joined him in 1875 (with an extra set of false teeth) and drew large crowds eager for her engaging Bible teaching. Indeed, her fame was beginning to eclipse her husband\u2019s with her newly released The Christian\u2019s Secret of A Happy Life. <\/em>Then, the unthinkable. While on a short holiday to Switzerland, a telegram informed her that Robert was ill and that she should come immediately.<\/p>\n

When she arrived, she learned that the \u201cillness\u201d was dismissal at the Brighton conference because he had molested a young girl. He had gone to her room and explained the \u201cthrills\u201d they could have together\u2014all while praying. The newspaper headline said it all: \u201cFamous Evangelist Found in Bedroom of Adoring Female Follower.\u201d As is often true today, such headlines didn\u2019t stop the preacher. Back home the following summer he was the featured speaker at the Framingham conference. But all the while, Robert expressed doubts and unbelief, and by 1877, he had lost his faith altogether.<\/p>\n

Hannah, too, struggled with doubts, but again death intervened. \u201cLittle Ray, our youngest, our perfect little girl, was only eleven and her life was full of promise. . . . For her loss there was no comfort, but simply and only the sweet will of God\u201d\u2014and one more link to heaven.\u201d In the years that followed, Robert began sneaking out of the house to spend nights with his nearby lady friend. That was bad enough, but then her daughter Mary abandoned her husband and two young daughters. After Hannah\u2019s son-in-law died she was granted custody of the girls. That was good news, but unbelief continued to fester within the family. Walt Whitman, a neighbor and frequent visitor, talked of starting a religion with its own bible, Leaves of Grass\u2014<\/em>considered by many as a rag of obscenity. If Whitman\u2019s influence was not enough, daughter Alys married atheist Bertrand Russell.<\/p>\n

Robert died in 1898, and soon after Hannah wrote to a friend that her \u201cdear husband was permitted to escape from the earthly tabernacle,\u201d and \u201cthat his long time of darkness is over and that God\u2019s light has shown upon him at last.\u201d He had been \u201csafely gathered\u201d\u2014as would be her unbelieving children and grandchildren. Her emphasis was on the \u201cmother-love of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a mother, I will never cease to love my children, no matter what they do. God, our loving God, has a heart of mother-love infinitely greater than mine. He never withholds his love from any sinner, no matter how black-hearted or unrepentant the person may be. His love is completely unconditional. Oh, it is too much. I cannot bear to hear a preacher of the gospel say such limited and untruthful things about the Love of God.<\/p>\n

Hannah lived on until 1911, having witnessed her best-selling book, The Christian\u2019s Secret to A Happy Life, <\/em>break publishing records\u2014today having exceeded ten million and still selling. She has been deemed a heretic by some, but like many professional theologians, her beliefs were personal as much as biblical. She wondered how anyone could believe in a God who would punish loved ones eternally in a lake of fire\u2014the very hell of which Billy warned his listeners. Her belief was based on a denied such a hell and a heaven of reconstituted family unity. Chuck and Robert simply abandoned God and the concept of heaven altogether.<\/p>\n

What is the value of the accounts of these four individuals and others who have similar stories? When I was writing Walking Away from Faith<\/em> nearly two decades ago, I thought I knew. I\u2019m not so certain any more. Sure, I include stories of people returning to faith. But our culture has changed dramatically in the last twenty years, and to some extent the book\u2019s relevance now seems dated.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was studying the patterns of apostasies (Finding Faith, Losing Faith), I found Ruth Tucker\u2019s book so helpful and this post draws from her book. (paid links) By Ruth Tucker \u201cSuddenly from head to foot, Robert was shaken with what seemed like a magnetic thrill of heavenly delight and floods of glory seemed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTwo Evangelists' Farewell to God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When I was studying the patterns of apostasies (Finding Faith, Losing Faith), I found Ruth Tucker's book so helpful and this post draws from her book.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2019\/10\/21\/two-evangelists-farewell-to-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Evangelists' Farewell to God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I was studying the patterns of apostasies (Finding Faith, Losing Faith), I found Ruth Tucker's book so helpful and this post draws from her book.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2019\/10\/21\/two-evangelists-farewell-to-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-10-21T05:06:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-10-18T18:24:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2019\/10\/21\/two-evangelists-farewell-to-god\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2019\/10\/21\/two-evangelists-farewell-to-god\/\",\"name\":\"Two Evangelists' Farewell to God\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-10-21T05:06:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-10-18T18:24:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"When I was studying the patterns of apostasies (Finding Faith, Losing Faith), I found Ruth Tucker's book so helpful and this post draws from her book.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2019\/10\/21\/two-evangelists-farewell-to-god\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2019\/10\/21\/two-evangelists-farewell-to-god\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2019\/10\/21\/two-evangelists-farewell-to-god\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Two Evangelists’ Farewell to God\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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