Chapter 7: Simpson’s Contributions to Urban and Worldwide Evangelization
VII
Simpson’s Contributions to Urban and Worldwide Evangelization
Simpson’s Burden for Souls
A. B. Simpson made an impact on the nineteenth century by his concern for the urban masses, especially in New York City. Along with his concern for the evangelization of the world, Simpson’s whole life was poured into ministering to the neglected and lost people of the world. His entire focus and energy was concentrated into this great quest. The society that he founded, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, would carry on his vision and burden up to the present time.
Simpson, speaking about the necessity of world evangelism, wrote, “This is not merely a duty. It is the supreme task of every Christian. This is not merely a question of Christian obligation. It is not merely an opportunity. It is an emergency the true servant of God is ‘redeeming in time’—buying up the opportunity.”577 He saw the primary purpose of the Christian and the church was to reach the lost next door and across the world. Simpson’s burden and his passion was for the unreached people of the world.
Where did Simpson get this great concern for the lost souls around him? As a young man, he himself struggled with his own lost condition. It nearly drove him to despair. Upon his conversion, Simpson was assured of his own salvation, but he did not yet seem to have the same burning desire to see others come to Jesus Christ that he would develop years later. During his time at Knox College and subsequently at his first church in Hamilton, Ontario, it is hard to see the great passion for souls he would later have in Louisville, Kentucky, and New York City. While at Knox Church, Simpson saw the church grow. During his tenure, 750 new members were brought in.578 For the most part, his focus was on those within the church and not on those outside its walls. He poured most of his attention on his church and had a very localized view of the ministry.579 A. E. Thompson describes this period in Simpson’s life in a way that shows his very narrow conception of evangelistic outreach. Thompson writes:
In those days few Presbyterian ministers engaged in special evangelistic campaigns however earnest they might be as preachers of the Gospel. Dr. Wardrobe, of Guelph, Ontario, was one of the exceptions. An incident, which he recalled in his later years, is illuminating: “I had just returned to Ontario from a pastorate in the Maritime Provinces, and, being in Hamilton for a day, I decided to call upon a young preacher there and ask him, as the most likely man I could think of, to come and assist me in a series of revival meetings. With much dignity he replied, ‘I believe in the regular work of the ministry.’ What was my surprise, therefore, to learn not many years later that my young friend, Simpson, had left the ‘regular work of the ministry’ to give himself to the evangelization of the neglected masses of the American metropolis.”580
Why did Simpson have this great burden for lost souls after he left Knox Church in Hamilton, Ontario? What would cause such a change in his philosophy of ministry? After leaving Knox Church, Simpson answered a call to pastor the Chestnut Street Church in Louisville, Kentucky. It was in Louisville that Simpson experienced two crises, or turning points, that precipitated his burden for the lost.581 The first crisis came about when he was filled by the Holy Spirit. Simpson saw this crisis as not only integral to his own personal sanctification, but also essential to his evangelistic ministry. When Simpson described his experience, he spoke of how he “had received a profound spiritual blessing in the midst of an ambitious and half-consecrated ministry, how the baptism of the Holy Spirit awakened in his heart an intense longing for the salvation of souls and simpler methods of reaching the masses with the Gospel.”582 Simpson saw this as the Holy Spirit working through him, and it was the Holy Spirit that gave him this burden for lost souls. He writes, “the Lord Jesus Christ tells us that we are sanctified in order to serve him here.”583 It was at this same time that Simpson experienced his second crisis, through which he developed his vision for the lost of the world.
Shortly after Simpson’s arrival in Louisville in 1874, he called together the pastors of the city to meet at his Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church. He wanted to invite these pastors to participate in a citywide evangelistic crusade.584
Simpson began by gathering the pastors together to pray for revival. They invited Major D. W. Whittle to preach and P. P. Bliss to sing. As a result, hundreds were converted. The campaign had a tremendous impact on the city.585 Whittle and Bliss illustrated to Simpson the importance of the Spirit-filled life and ministry in reaching the masses for Christ. Simpson and his ministry would never be the same. He was no longer content to do the “regular ministry of the church.” He now had to reach the masses; whether poor or rich, black or white, he wanted to see all people come to the Savior. George Pardington comments on this evangelistic campaign: “As a result, Louisville was visited with a great religious awakening. Mr. Simpson himself was deeply stirred by these meetings and the Lord gave him an intense desire to preach the Gospel to the non-churchgoing masses.”586
After the Whittle and Bliss campaign, Simpson wanted to continue with the evangelistic outreach on Sunday evenings, but he could not get the support from the other pastors, so he and his congregation decided to continue by themselves.587 They continued to carry out the evangelistic outreach for two winters. They met every Sunday evening, first in the Public Library Hall and later on in Maculey’s Theatre.588 Evangelism had become Simpson’s central focus. T. V. Thomas and Ken Draper wrote about this change: “No longer content to be secure in a comfortable church of social equals, he [Simpson] sought to mobilize the whole church for evangelization.”589 Pardington comments that at this time Simpson was convinced the Lord wanted him to be a full-time evangelist.590 Later, Simpson said that God closed the door for him to be a full time evangelist, even though that was his primary ministry in both Louisville and New York City.
Simpson was not satisfied with the location and the size of his Louisville church or with renting facilities for the evangelistic campaigns. He wanted a facility that was centrally located within the city and would hold the masses that would come to the campaigns.591 The church agreed with Simpson’s plan to build a “tabernacle-type” building that would hold up to 2,500 people.592 In the end, the church leaders built a facility much more elaborate than Simpson had wanted. They spent more than the budgeted amount and went into significant debt.593 Simpson believed it was wrong to borrow money to build the structure and felt that the money could have been better spent in the advancement of the gospel. With a $50,000 debt on the building, Simpson refused to dedicate the tabernacle until the debt was paid off.594
In addition to this point of contention, Simpson and the leaders of the church differed in their vision of what they wanted to accomplish. Simpson felt the leadership of the church was hindering him from accomplishing all that he wanted to do for God in terms of evangelism in Louisville. He felt the church leadership was limiting what God could do.595 Simpson described how the Holy Spirit had put in his heart an intense burden for souls as well as a desire for a simpler method to reach the masses with the gospel.596 He wrote of the obstacles that leadership put before him. He stated, “After attempting for several years to accomplish the purpose [reach the masses] in a fashionable Presbyterian church during which something was accomplished but much was hindered by the social exclusiveness and the conventional religious methods about him [Simpson].”597 As a result, Simpson felt it was necessary to find another church. Ironically, he would face the same problem in the next church. They too did not share Simpson’s vision of reaching the masses for Christ.
It was during his time in Louisville that Simpson experienced another crisis in his life. This new crisis was the development of his great burden for world evangelism. When Simpson was a baby, the famous Canadian Presbyterian missionary to the South Sea Islands, John Geddie, had baptized him. In Geddie’s prayer, he had committed young Simpson for missionary service. On a furlough roughly twenty-one years later, Geddie visited Simpson at Knox Church to remind him of that prayer and that Simpson had been set apart for the proclamation of the gospel.598 Shortly after Simpson graduated from Knox College, he had thought about offering himself for missionary service. After talking to his future wife, however, he decided to accept a call from Knox Church.599 Thompson comments on how Simpson’s heart for missions nonetheless impacted his pastorate at Knox: “A marked increase in missionary interest was noted in that congregation during his ministry.”600 Simpson definitely had a keen interest in missions before he ever faced his crisis with missions in Louisville.
In 1877, while serving in Louisville, Simpson went to a Believer’s Conference at Watkins Glen, New York, to be rejuvenated both spiritually and physically. At the conference, the speaker spoke on the importance of a closer walk with God and issued a missionary challenge. This pierced both Simpson’s conscience and his heart for the unreached masses of the world.601 Later, while staying with some friends in Chicago, Simpson had a vision of the lost of the world. Later, he described it:
Never shall I forget how, eighteen years ago, I was awakened one night from sleep, trembling with a strange and solemn sense of God’s overshadowing power, and on my soul was burning the remembrance of a strange dream through which I had that moment come. It seemed to me that I was sitting in a vast auditorium and millions of people were sitting around me. All the Christians in the world seemed to be there, and on the platform was a great multitude of faces and forms. They seemed to be mostly Chinese. They were not speaking, but in mute anguish were wringing their hands, and their faces wore an expression that I can never forget. I had not been thinking or speaking of the Chinese or the heathen world, but as I awoke with that vision on my mind, I did tremble with the Holy Spirit, and I threw myself on my knees, and every fiber of my being answered, “Yes, Lord, I will go.”602
Immediately after having this dream, Simpson wrote to his wife, Margaret, about the vision and told her he wanted to immediately go to the mission field. She answered him right away.603 Recalling the letter, Mrs. Simpson later commented, “I wrote to him that it was all right—he might go to China himself—and I would remain at home and support and care for the children. I knew that would settle him for awhile.”604 Simpson saw that it was impractical for him to go to China, but he felt he had to do something. He had this great burden for the world, but he did not know what to do about it. He wrote, “I tried for months to find an open door, but the way was closed. Years afterward God showed me that he had laid the question on my heart, and until he allowed me to go forth, if I ever did, I was to labor for the world and the perishing heathen just the same as if I were permitted to go to them.”605
How could Simpson be involved in the worldwide mission outreach? What could he do? He began to notice that there was little communication between the different missionary agencies. Often, one agency would not know what the other was doing.606 Additionally, the Christian public was ignorant of what was going on around the world. They were limited to local denominational boards, and they did not know what other mission agencies were doing either. The Christian public had a myopic view of missions and worldwide evangelization. John Sawin wrote that Simpson saw a solution to this: “A plan crystallized in Simpson’s thoughts—one that seemed impractical or impossible to those he consulted: He proposed publishing an illustrated missionary journal that gathered into its pages the work of missionaries in all lands. The project became a driving force in his life.”607
As a result of his burden for the world and for the masses, Simpson saw that it was time to expand his horizons. When the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church in New York City called him as their pastor, Simpson saw this as a divine invitation. New York City was the largest city in the United States, teeming with immigrants who had never heard the gospel. There were literally millions of men, women, and children who had never heard of Christ’s atoning work. New York City was also the center of mission activity for many missionary agencies. It would be a perfect place to launch an illustrated missionary periodical. God had used Louisville to change Simpson and enlarge his vision to prepare him for the work in New York.
Sawin comments on Simpson’s ministry in Louisville: “Simpson’s ministry in Louisville determined the course of the rest of his life. Almost every major aspect of his message, his ministry and the movement he founded can be traced to his experiences while pastor of Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church.”608 After Simpson’s arrival in New York City, he was exposed to the great need of the urban masses in that city. His ministry would never be the same. He could not ignore the neglected people of the city, and his ministry there reflected it.
Simpson’s Concern for the Urban Masses
Gerald McGraw, writing about the environment A. B. Simpson found himself in when he arrived in New York City, said it was the perfect place for Simpson. He remarks:
Where should a pastor locate if his highest priority for the 1880s included missionary promotion and the evangelizing of unreached masses? From what American port did overseas missionaries sail? To what harbor were nearly a million immigrants arriving annually to start a new life? The answer, obviously, was New York City, which was both the haven for new settlers and the hub of missionary departures, arrivals, and information.609
God could not have placed Simpson in a more strategic place for missions and urban outreach. His dream of seeing the urban masses reached on behalf of Christ and of becoming actively involved in worldwide missions would be fulfilled in his long and fruitful ministry in New York City. Simpson began his ministry at the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Manhattan on December 9, 1879.
Over the decade of the 1880s, the American urban population increased by 50 percent.610 This was due to a tremendous influx of immigrants from Europe. More than five million immigrants came to New York in that decade.611 This produced a tremendous challenge for New York City’s Christians and their churches. The masses needed to be reached for Christ, although most of the city’s Christians and churches were not meeting this challenge. Even Simpson’s own church would not support his efforts to reach out to these urban masses. Simpson had originally come based on assurances from the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church leadership that they were supportive of his evangelistic endeavors. But when their young and enthusiastic pastor wanted to bring one hundred poor Italian immigrants into their fashionable middle-class church, they had second thoughts. Consequently, Simpson began to have problems with the church leadership. McGraw writes:
Although he had energetically served that traditional Thirteenth Street parish for two years, at the same time he kept pursuing cross-cultural ministries in public halls and on the streets. Reputed to constitute the metropolis’ most wealthy, fashionable parish, his congregation refused to welcome hundreds of Italian immigrants he was winning to Christ. Consequently, despite the remonstrating of his denominational colleagues, the wonder of the press and the criticism of his loyal wife, Margaret, Simpson forsook a comfortable salary to become, as he explained, an evangelist who would remain on the scene and follow up his converts, who refused to trust anyone but God for his support.612
Simpson gave up all financial security, as well as the prestige of his church, to try to reach the needy that were surrounding him. Leaving the Presbyterian ministry seemed ludicrous to Simpson’s wife, Margaret. It seemed shortsighted and impractical. How would they support their family? Without Simpson’s pastorate, they did not even have a place to live because they were living in the church’s parsonage. She had her feet on the ground, while Simpson’s mind was often in the heavens. Over the years, Margaret gradually came to trust her husband’s vision and judgment. Sawin wrote, “In her younger years as Simpson’s wife, Margaret had opposed him on some key decisions and at times made his life difficult. But once she caught up with his vision and became convinced he was a man sent from God, Dr. Simpson had no finer, more loyal and hardworking associate than his wife.”613 Shortly after the Alliance was organized, Margaret was elected to serve as financial secretary on the Board of Managers. She served at this capacity until her death at the age of eighty-two.614 She also served in the beginning of the Alliance on the Foreign Missions Committee. She had a burden for missionaries and corresponded with almost all the Alliance missionaries. Shortly before she died, she told E. J. Richards, the home secretary of the Alliance, that she had eight trunks filled with correspondence written to her by foreign missionaries and friends from North America.615 She also served as the superintendent of assignments for missionaries, and she was considered a good judge of whether a young person was fit for missionary service.616 Margaret became an integral part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
Having left his Presbyterian charge, Simpson, along with thirty-five others, formed the Gospel Tabernacle on February 10, 1882, with the goal of reaching the unreached people in the city and throughout the world who had never heard the gospel.617 The local churches were not reaching these people. The urban challenge was not being met. George Reitz writes of the challenge and burden Simpson felt for those around them:
Yet to meet this challenge, the urban church of New York City was weak. A. B. Simpson faulted the apparently 480 evangelical Protestant churches with nearly 80,000 members and adherents not so much for their quantity as for their quality. He claimed that the church was more concerned about nice theories, beautiful sermons, church decorations, and personal pleasures than thousands of lost men and women.618
In January of 1882, Simpson noted that the urban population had grown by sixteen thousand in five years, and there was not a single new church planted during that time.619 Simpson also condemned the flight of the evangelical Protestant churches that were then moving from urban neighborhoods to nicer uptown areas.620 Simpson noted that “almost half of New York’s population, or a total of 542,000, live below Fourteenth Street, and yet, in all this densely populated region, the former home of nearly all the churches, there are but 112 Protestant churches, of which many are only missions”621 He saw a great need, and the goal of his new church would be to reach these masses.
The Gospel Tabernacle moved a number of times using temporary facilities. In 1889 a permanent church building was erected in Hell’s Kitchen, right in the middle of one of the neediest areas in New York City.622 Walter Rauschenbusch, author of the book A Theology for the Social Gospel and one of the chief architects of the Social Gospel movement, pastored the Second German Baptist Church in the Hell’s Kitchen area near the Gospel Tabernacle.623 Rauschenbusch spent ten years pastoring in Hell’s Kitchen and later taught about the Social Gospel at Rochester Theological Seminary. Although Simpson and Rauschenbusch served churches in proximity, there is no evidence they were personally acquainted.624 Of the two, it was Simpson who stayed in New York City and continued to minister at the Gospel Tabernacle until his death.625
While working in New York City one of Simpson’s favorite verses in the Bible became Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witness in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (NIV). Simpson had a unique interpretation of the verse as well as a broad definition of the application of the text.626 He did not see the Samaria of the text as a geographical location such as New York, Connecticut, or New Jersey; rather, it was found in the outcasts of the city.627 Reitz writes, “Simpson went on to identify these outcast types as the drunkard, harlot, thief, convict, foreign population, and the multitude ‘struggling in the dark underworld of poverty.’”628 Simpson’s goal was not to reach either the poor or the rich; it was to reach the unsaved. He did not want anyone to be neglected. He wanted to preach the gospel to all who would hear it. Pardington, a contemporary and close friend of Simpson, wrote of Simpson’s vision and passion for the masses. He explains:
The vast throngs of non-church goers in New York City were laid heavily on Mr. Simpson’s heart. He desired to preach the Gospel to them on the street or in public halls, as he had done in Louisville. He made a personal canvas of the North Ward, visiting every home. In prayer and planning he conceived a church without pew rents and for all classes and conditions of man, something like Newman Hall’s Church, or Spurgeon’s Tabernacle in London, England.629
The purpose of the founding of the Gospel Tabernacle was to reach the unevangelized masses. There would be no discrimination. Pardington goes on to remark that the purpose of the Gospel Tabernacle was to save souls and train people in evangelistic work or missionary service.630
Simpson was primarily concerned with the condition of people’s souls. His greatest focus and concern was with the spiritual, but he did not let his focus on the spiritual aspects blind him to the physical needs of those to whom he was ministering. This was essential to the perspective of all the evangelicals who worked among the poor and needy in the urban centers of America in the late nineteenth century. Their primary immediate focus was on the soul, but they did a tremendous amount of work to alleviate the physical suffering of the downtrodden in the slums. Donald Dayton comments on the social outreach of evangelical groups:
Norris Magnuson has carefully surveyed the activities and convictions of such revivalist movements as the Salvation Army, the Volunteers of America, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the “rescue mission” movement, the circles around the Christian Herald and the Florence Criterton homes for “fallen women” during the period from 1865 to 1920. He details how the commitment of the “slum workers” to “saving souls” did not preclude their involvement in a wide range of social concerns (food, shelter, recreation, health, unemployment, and so forth) among such dwellers of the inner-cities as the poverty-stricken, recent immigrants, racial minorities—as well as among the more socially deviant derelicts, prisoners and prostitutes.631
According to Dayton, “Out of Simpson’s work grew the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a movement that originally understood itself to have a special call to serve the ‘neglected classes’ both at home and abroad.”632 The goal of every social outreach ministry led by Simpson and the Gospel Tabernacle—whether it was the rescue mission, work in hospitals, orphanages, industrial missions, missions to fallen women, or ministry to prisoners—was to lead lost souls to Christ.633 Daniel Evearitt stated that the focus of Simpson and all the other evangelists involved in the Social Gospel outreach was to convert souls, not to reform society.634 This was how D. L. Moody saw Christian ministry, and it was also how most evangelicals in this period understood their social outreach ministry. Yet, as a consequence of redeeming souls, they were also transforming society.
Evangelicals have had a significant impact on reforming society, but they did not receive as much credit as those from the more socially liberal churches. While more liberal churches set up rescue missions in poorer areas, most members were not personally involved in the work and hired social workers to staff them. In contrast, the evangelical churches were a mission and took this role seriously. The Gospel Tabernacle was the hub of ministry activity in the Hell’s Kitchen area of New York City.
One of Simpson’s most interesting qualities was his ability to attract gifted leaders to help him in his work. Norris Magnuson attributed the rapid growth of the early Alliance to this quality. He explains:
Among the reasons for the continuous growth of the Alliance was the caliber of men whose cooperation Simpson attracted. A list of speakers at the New York and Old Orchard annual conventions constitute something of a “Who’s Who” of the evangelicalism of the day. Andrew Murray and F. B. Meyer from abroad, and A. J. Gordon, A. T. Pierson, R. A. Torrey, D. L. Moody, J. Wilbur Chapman, S. H. Hadley, Francis Williard and Robert E. Speer from the United States. Others officially united with the Alliance in the missionary endeavors.635
Simpson also attracted quality leaders for the staff at the Gospel Tabernacle. One such man was Henry Wilson. Wilson was Simpson’s associate pastor at the Tabernacle and was seen as perhaps Simpson’s closest friend. Next to Simpson, Wilson is considered the most important leader in the early years of the Alliance.636 Wilson was involved in a number of social outreach programs, serving as the president of the Seaman’s Christian Association and chaplain of the Magdalene Home for Girls.637 Simpson made this comment about Henry Wilson: “‘Few men’ in New York were ‘in closer touch’ and more helpful friends to the city missionaries.”638 Wilson was also the chief organizer for the annual “Rescue Day” featuring city missionaries and their work at the New York conventions.639 Rescue Day came out of the Gospel Tabernacle monthly all-night prayer meetings for the city missionaries of New York City.640 This became an important event for not only Alliance workers, but also for many other groups and welfare workers from the surrounding area.641
One of the quality female leaders Simpson worked with was Emma W. Wittemore, who founded the Door of Hope ministries for “fallen women.”642 This ministry evolved into a nationwide ministry in thirteen years, and by 1903 there were sixty-one Door of Hope missions throughout the United States.643 Another woman Simpson had a great influence on was Carrie Judd-Montgomery. She was a renowned speaker on healing and holiness. She was also active in rescue and welfare work.644 Carrie Judd-Montgomery founded Faith Rest Cottage in Buffalo to minister to the physical and spiritual needs of the downtrodden. Later she and her husband moved to San Francisco, where they founded the City of Refuge, which was a village of welfare institutions.645 She also published the periodical Triumphs of Truth, which continued to her time of death.646 Simpson attracted men and women who took seriously the motto of the Gospel Tabernacle, “A work for everyone and everyone at work.”
How much impact did Simpson and the early Alliance have on New York City and the surrounding area? John Dahms wrote: “Due to the influence of the Alliance and its leadership, the ministry in ‘hospitals, almshouses, and charitable institutions’ in New York City was so considerable by 1894, that it was said that even A. B. Simpson would have been at a loss to tell ‘how much the Alliance was doing for all [such] agencies of Christian work in that city.’”647 In 1907, the weekly Alliance periodical, The Christian and Missionary Alliance Weekly, said, “Many of the charitable institutions ‘within the limits of New York City, and indeed for many miles around’ had benefited from the influence of the Gospel Tabernacle, and that many of their leaders were adherents of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.”648 Simpson and the early Alliance members had an important impact on New York City in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Since very little has been written about it outside of a few academic books, these efforts have been largely forgotten.
Simpson and the early Alliance took the social needs of the neglected masses of the city to heart. They saw themselves as not only responsible for saving souls, but also for helping to alleviate physical needs when possible. Robert Glover, writing shortly after the death of Simpson, stated that more than seven hundred people had entered full time church work or rescue work from the Alliance.649 This statement shows the emphasis training rescue workers placed on reaching the neglected masses.
What social ministries were Simpson and the early Alliance actually involved in? Within three years after the founding of the Gospel Tabernacle, two rescue missions were opened to reach those in need of health care, particularly sailors and prostitutes near the church.650 The Gospel Tabernacle opened another mission in 1899 on Eleventh Avenue near Thirty-eighth Street that became known as “Eleventh Street Mission.”651 There would be a total of seven rescue missions—three for the homeless and four for “fallen women”—that would be operated and supported by the Gospel Tabernacle.652 The church also founded the Berachah Orphanage to care for homeless children.653 The orphanage opened in 1886 at College Point, Long Island in New York, before relocating to Nyack, New York.654 There were also other orphanages in the United States that received support both directly and indirectly from the Alliance.655 This ministry to orphans extended overseas. During the 1890s, there was a famine in India, and Alliance missionaries in India provided for a number of orphans during that difficult time.656
In 1894, Simpson opened the Berachah Home. This was a home intended for rest and healing. The focus at the home was divine healing without the aid of physicians.657 Simpson described the Berachah Home as a “delightful” place of rest and spiritual blessing.658 During the first fifteen years of his ministry, it was reported that ten thousand souls had been transformed through “rest,” quickening, and divine healing.659 Other healing homes were established all over the United States that patterned themselves after the Berachah Home. These homes were connected to Alliance people or people who had ties with the Alliance.660
The Alliance was also involved in health ministries in New York City. The Second Berachah Mission was established in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. Evearitt commented, “At the time, it was ‘the best equipped mission in the city,’ with work among sailors and a free medical dispensary for the poor of the neighborhood.”661 Amelia Barnett, who was a member of the Gospel Tabernacle, was one of a number of physicians who made their services available for free to all who were in need.662 Dr. George Dowkonut, who was involved with the Berachah mission, trained a number of physicians in their dispensaries, and many of them went overseas as medical missionaries.663 These medical dispensaries not only helped the needy of New York, they also impacted the world for Christ through missionary doctors.
Simpson and the early Alliance leadership were also involved in industrial missions. In the rescue missions, they tried to help the needy find employment and provide job skills.664 In New York City, the Door of Hope establishments trained their residents in homemaking, dressmaking, and fancy serving.665 There was a Woman’s Industrial Center, which was an integral part of the Door of Hope Center, in Fort Worth, Texas.666 In Buffalo, New York, there was an Industrial School for Girls that was affiliated with the Alliance.667 These industrial missions were not limited to the United States. Overseas, the Alliance founded an industrial school and workshop in Akola, India. At this school, young people were taught useful skills that they could use to support themselves. The Alliance also began an industrial farm where children were taught farming methods and “help[ed] supply food for the Alliance orphanages.”668 Famines throughout India in the 1890s opened the door for Alliance missionaries to care for a large number of orphans who benefitted from this training and education. Later, as the famines ceased to be a problem, the Alliance missionaries gradually removed themselves from the care of orphans and industrial education in India.669
One of the first things Simpson did when he went to New York City was to get involved in evangelism with the European immigrants who surrounded his church. Members of the church were involved in helping newly arrived immigrants from Germany as early as 1887.670 Albert Funk, who was an assistant pastor at the Gospel Tabernacle, provided German language services for German immigrants.671 Evangelism among the Italian immigrants was what ultimately led to Simpson’s resignation from the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church. Simpson and the early Alliance concentrated much of their time and energy on working with Italian immigrants. Magnuson wrote:
The Alliance opened a mission in 1890 in a funeral home in “little Italy.” A “faith” work, the mission included by 1895 an Italian church on 112th Street as well as a home for girls at Tivoli-on-the-Hudson. Students and faculty at Nyack Missionary Institute held Italian services regularly at nearby towns and conducted night school sessions three times weekly.672
The Italian evangelist Michele Nardi attended the Gospel Tabernacle and graduated from the Alliance Training School in New York City. He was a close friend of Simpson’s his whole life. Simpson regularly reported Nardi’s ministries in the Alliance Weekly673 and later wrote a biography about Nardi’s death.674 Nardi had a tremendous ministry among the Italian people in the United States and Italy.675 Simpson and the early Alliance poured their hearts and efforts into reaching as many of the neglected immigrant population as they could.
It was not only immigrants who constituted the “neglected masses.” Another group of people Simpson was involved in reaching out to in a number of ways was African Americans. According to Reitz,
There didn’t seem to be any color barrier to Simpson. Even though there was no work among blacks in New York City, Simpson wholeheartedly supported ministries in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina where churches were planted. Diaconate outreaches were opened: Love-Joy Missions Institute in 1906 in North Carolina, a ministry assisting black families in Nashville, Tennessee, an inner-city children’s work in Chattanooga.676
As Simpson wrote in 1898, “One of the most unique and encouraging features of the Alliance work in Ohio and Pennsylvania is the successful organization of a number of strong branches of our beloved colored brothers.”677 Simpson goes on to say, “They are attracted to the heart-stirring truths and deep spirituality of the Alliance movement.”678 The early Alliance leadership held their African American brothers and sisters in high regard. Simpson stated in 1899, “Much excellent work is being done among our colored brethren in various parts of the country. Some of our best Alliance branches in Ohio and Pennsylvania are exclusively among them and are supporting several missionaries.”679 African Americans became an integral and important part of the early Christian and Missionary Alliance. They were involved in reaching other African Americans in northern cities through their effective ministry, which earned the respect of their white colleagues as well.680 African American believers also volunteered for missionary service, especially in Africa, where white missionaries often suffered severe health problems.681 Some believers were also involved in rescue ministry work and educational efforts in the South.682 African American involvement in the Christian and Missionary Alliance has continued to the present. This is especially true in the district this author serves in. The Metropolitan District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance encompasses the New York City metropolitan area and the entire state of New Jersey. There are a number of ethnic churches still being planted, and some are being planted by African American pastors in predominately African American neighborhoods. There are also a number of African American pastors in leadership positions in the district. They serve on both the District Executive Committee and the License and Ordination Committee. One goal of the Alliance, both locally and nationally, is to get more African Americans involved as missionaries, pastors, and in leadership positions in both district and national levels.
Simpson was also involved in the early temperance movement. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union Evangelistic Training School met at the Alliance’s Berachah mission in New York City in the 1890s.683 Simpson gave the daily Bible lectures at the Women’s Christian Temperance Union Training School during the 1890s.684 There was also a regular article on temperance in the Christian and Missionary Alliance periodical, The Alliance Weekly.685
Simpson had an impact on Frances Williard, who was the well known leader of the temperance movement. She wrote a letter to The Alliance Weekly and told of her earlier experience of sanctification at Old Orchard, Maine, where the Alliance met annually.686 Simpson wrote at her death “that her loss would be felt ‘as widely as any break in the ranks of Christian workers during the century.’”687 Simpson, in his tribute to Williard, went on to say that her friends and fellow laborers “were loyal friends and members of the Alliance.”688
Magnuson commented about Simpson’s involvement with the temperance movement by writing,
Despite A. B. Simpson’s conviction that there were plenty of people “to run social reform and temperance societies” his Alliance followers were prominent in the W.C.T.U. (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) and generally active in the cause of temperance. The Alliance Weekly, which he edited, for years featured a “temperance column,” as did most rescue journals. Students at his training school in New York City spent their afternoons and evenings in tenement houses, saloons and rescue missions, claiming many converts from “drink.” Simpson’s influential colleague, Henry Wilson, was president of a mission, which stresses the abstinence “pledge.” Joseph Pullis, a convert from apparently hopeless drunkenness who became a spiritual leader in the Alliance in New York, served on the staff of the Christian Home for Intemperate Men, where he had himself found shelter.689
Though Simpson was highly involved in the outreach to the urban masses, there has been some criticism that as he got older and as the Alliance movement matured, there was generally less interest in the downtrodden and needy. According to David Moberg, “The intense interest in social service on the part of the early Christian and Missionary Alliance members was soon subtly opposed by its founder, possibly because this competed with institutional goals of the new fellowship.”690 Evearitt, responding to this criticism, states, “He [Moberg] gives no specific examples for the ‘subtle’ opposition of Simpson to social work.”691 Evearitt goes on to give an explanation of Simpson’s waning interest in social work. He writes, “There is in the material written toward the end of Simpson’s life less of an emphasis on social concerns, and, indeed, by the end of his life some of the social welfare work was being curtailed. Orphanages were phased out and as children grew to adulthood and left the facilities and some Alliance works were taken over by others.”692 It also has to be remembered that for Simpson and his followers, as well as for other evangelicals working in social welfare, the primary concern was the spiritual need.693 They were there to save souls, and social outreach was the byproduct of that purpose. Therefore, social welfare was important, but it was not the primary focus. As Evearitt explains, “What social activity Simpson and his followers became involved in was on a personal level. It was a person-to-person, compassionate concern for needy individuals . . . He saw social needs and attempted to aid its victims on an individual basis. It was never his intention to try to make this world into a utopian society.”694 When Simpson went to New York City, he saw the need and, in turn, responded to it.695 Moberg was right to note the change in Simpson’s focus and in his interest in social outreach. This change was not because Simpson opposed social outreach or saw it as a threat to worldwide outreach. His focus changed because he saw even greater needs.
Was there another reason for the “subtle waning of interest” in social needs with Simpson? There seems to be a simple explanation to this question. In 1897, the Missionary Training Institute moved from New York City to Nyack, New York, twenty miles north of the metropolis. Nyack was a beautiful, sleepy little village overlooking the Hudson River. Simpson also moved to Nyack and had a home built on the campus. As a result, Simpson was no longer rubbing shoulders with immigrants and the poor, as he had been for so many years in New York City. He was no longer a resident of the city—he had become a commuter. Reitz agreed that this might have lessened Simpson’s burden for the urban masses in New York City.696 Evearitt also felt this was one of the reasons for waning interest in the poor in the vicinity of the church. Another reason for lessening concern was that the area around the Gospel Tabernacle was changing, becoming less impoverished and a little better off.697 Rather than lessening his burden for the urban masses, this move seemed to have shifted Simpson’s focus away from the urban outreach aspect of the Alliance to one of worldwide evangelization. The change in emphasis was gradual but steady. When one does not see an immediate need, it becomes easy to change one’s emphasis and focus, and that is what gradually happened to Simpson. The worldwide expansion of the ministry became more important and urban outreach less so. The question one might ask is: If Simpson had stayed in New York City, would the focus of the Alliance be different today? We will never know, but it is interesting to ponder.
Simpson’s Impact on Worldwide Evangelization
The Third Great Awakening saw tremendous growth in missionary interest. The missionary movement reached its pinnacle in the United States in the period from 1890 to 1917 and ultimately became an integral part of the Awakening. In terms of the number of missionaries serving at that time, financial support and popular support missions together warranted the term “crusade.”698 The missionary endeavor was on everybody’s lips. It was felt this generation could be reached for Christ. The missionary endeavor of the day could be encapsulated by the slogan of the Student Volunteer Missionary Movement, whose goal was to preach the gospel to the world in their generation. Their motto was “The evangelization of the world in this generation.” This motto was the vision of thousands of college and seminary students who were involved in reaching the world with the message of Christ. It was also the goal of the women’s missionary organizations. The Layman’s Movement, which was an organization of over 100,000 men who helped promote foreign missions in their local churches, also adopted this motto.699 Simpson was one of the leaders of this missionary movement. Mark Noll describes Simpson as one of the “missionary entrepreneurs” of the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. Simpson—along with D. L. Moody, A. T. Pierson, and A. J. Gordon—was a key figure in the missionary outreach.700 Ruth Tucker explains the role Simpson played during the missionary endeavor in North America at this time when she writes, “Like the great missionary statesmen Samuel Mills and John R. Mott, Simpson never served as a foreign missionary himself, but like Mills and Mott, his influence for missions was enormous, particularly in the growth of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century mission societies in America.”701
Tucker describes Simpson’s contribution in this way: “Largely through [Simpson’s] influence, foreign missions in the twentieth century became the most vital outreach of the North America Evangelical Churches.”702 At the time of his death, Simpson was recognized for his impact on worldwide missions.703 The Sunday School Times states that “he probably had no superior in missionary appeal.”704 Even the New York Times recognized his important influence on foreign missions in writing that he was “one of the leading executives in foreign missionary work.”705 Simpson had a significant impact on the worldwide evangelization of his day, and his impact is still being felt through the denomination he founded.
What were some of the major contributions Simpson made to the evangelization of the world? His first and most obvious contribution was the founding of a missionary denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The only other Protestant denomination that has been as zealous for missions was the Moravian Church of the eighteenth century. The Moravian Church was founded at Herrnhut in Germany in 1722 and was led by Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Five years after its founding, the group experienced a great revival. They began a prayer vigil that would continue twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This phenomenon lasted for one hundred years. After the start of the revival, the Moravians began sending missionaries throughout the world.706
The late missiologist J. Herbert Kane wrote that in the eighteenth century, the Moravians became the nerve center of a worldwide network of missionary outreach.707 Kane went on to say that members of the church were prepared to go to the ends of the earth at a moment’s notice when the need arose.708 He wrote, “Whenever a call came, they drew lots and the one or ones on whom the lot fell left as soon as possible for some remote part of the earth.”709 Kane explained that the key to their success was that they were convinced “that world missions [was] the supreme task of the church, and that the responsibility for carrying out the task rests with every member of the Christian community, not just the leaders.”710 Kane felt that it needed to be done again and that the Christian and Missionary Alliance were doing it. He remarked, “In more recent times the Christian and Missionary Alliance has come as close as anyone to achieving this idea. After one hundred years the Christian and Missionary Alliance is still predominately a missionary organization.”711
J. Edwin Orr made the same observation about Simpson and the Alliance. He wrote, “Albert Simpson, a convert of the 1858 Revival in Canada, founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance in 1886, at first as an interdenominational organization but later itself becoming a denomination as missionary minded as the Moravians.”712
A second major contribution Simpson made to worldwide evangelization was the founding of the Missionary Training Institute in New York City. It was one of the first Bible colleges in the United States. He founded the Institute in 1882 with twelve students.713 The first commencement at the Missionary Training Institute was held in 1884, and that November a missionary team of seven left for the Congo.714 The Missionary Training Institute was developed with the goal of training laypeople to reach the unsaved both in North America and abroad. The Missionary Training Institute trained a number of Christian workers and missionaries, both for the Christian and Missionary Alliance and also a number of independent faith mission boards.
Another key contribution Simpson made to the missionary movement was his emphasis on reaching unevangelized people of the world. This tremendous burden for the lost was a driving force in Simpson’s life. In fact, Simpson was once found in his study on his knees with his arms around a globe, weeping for the unevangelized masses of the world. This zeal for those who had yet to come to know Jesus would extend farther than Simpson ever dreamed. It would influence the lives of many others who would, in turn, contribute to one mission society after another.
Simpson, like Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, wanted to try to share the gospel with the unreached people of his time. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, most of the missionary activity was focused on the coastal regions of countries that had already been colonized. China was one such country. Feeling the burden to reach the Chinese in the interior of the country, Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission. Simpson too was compelled to try to reach neglected inland people. He passed on this burden to Roland Bingham, who had been one of his students at the Missionary Training Institute and who would later found the Sudan Interior Mission.715
Another young missionary who would come to be impacted was Peter Cameron Scott, who went to the Missionary Training School and then served as a missionary with the Christian and Missionary Alliance to the West Coast of Africa. Scott would later come back to the United States and found the African Inland Mission.716 Simpson also influenced the founder of The Evangelical Alliance Mission, more commonly know today as TEAM. William Franson was a Swedish-American who was captivated by Simpson and his missionary vision. Franson was involved with taking Swedish missionaries to work with Alliance missionaries in China and later founded TEAM.717
Simpson, along with a few others of his time, saw the great need to reach the people and groups that were not being reached by other missionary societies. He writes:
Our chosen fields are the “regions beyond” in unoccupied portions of the heathen world, and so our missionaries have been led into the most difficult and remote regions and enabled to introduce the Gospel to many sections where Christ had not been named, such as Kwang-si in South China, the province of Hunan in Central China, the borders of Tibet [and recently the country of Annom], the tribe of Mongolia; the unoccupied region of Congo and the Niger in Africa and some of the neglected republics in South America”718
It was not the goal of either Simpson or the early Alliance to duplicate what other missionary organizations were doing; therefore, they would look for the most neglected and destitute parts of the earth.719 The fact that one hundred missionaries died overseas during the first twenty-five years of the Alliance’s missionary work illustrates the sacrifice these early missionaries made. Louis L. King comments about the early Alliance work:
The areas the new organization [CMA] originally sought to enter were blocked by unfriendly governments, hostile people and impossible living conditions. But undeterred, with unparalleled bravery and an enormous toll by death, Alliance missionaries soon penetrated Congo, India, and China. Within five years, work had been started in twelve countries, with forty stations manned by 180 missionaries. Twenty-three missionaries had died. Further, the cost of accomplishment can be seen in 45 deaths in India and the Congo between 1893 and 1900 and in the 36 martyrs’ graves in China in 1900.720
Simpson and the early Alliance wanted to reach these neglected people no matter what the cost. Simpson saw the overwhelming need as well as the lack of workers available to accomplish the task. He states in his book Missionary Messages that the church in North America had the resources to do the job, but the focus of North American churches was in the wrong places. He comments, “While the wealth of our people increases and our Christian agencies are crowded with professional workers, the mission fields are neglected and even the workers that would go are hindered for lack of means. The Lord’s heart aches as he cries, ‘The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few.’”721
Simpson was able to share this vision with the North American church through his missionary conventions. As a result of these conventions, by 1914 the Alliance had almost three hundred missionaries and rose close to four million dollars to support these missionaries.722 Simpson was able to write that year about the progress of the Alliance. He reported, “Although the work is still but a beginning, yet we thank God for a consecrated army of more than a thousand men and women in our home and foreign fields, where the supreme watchword is the fullness of Jesus for His people and the evangelization of the world in the present situation.”723 All this was accomplished in a brief, twenty-five-year span. The driving passion to reach the lost led to the great sacrifices made by the early Alliance missionaries and members.
With this fervor within them, Alliance missionaries became the first to pioneer missions work in a number of countries. Alliance missionaries planted the first churches in the provinces of Hunan and Kwang-si in the country of China.724 Robert Glover, commenting on the Alliance and their pioneering work in China, wrote, “The Society, patterned largely after the China Inland Mission in its principles and practice, had a worthy share in the pioneer work of several of the last provinces of China to be entered with the gospel.725 During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 in China, 189 missionaries and children were put to death. The two missions that lost the most missionaries were the China Inland Mission with seventy-nine deaths and the Christian and Missionary Alliance with thirty-six deaths.726 As Kenneth Scott Latourette wrote of Simpson and the early work of the Alliance in the Congo, “In 1885 A. B. Simpson, out of whose labour in the United States came what was eventually the Christian and Missionary Alliance, sent his first band to the Congo. Illness brought to the venture a tragic interruption, but in 1888 another party came and succeeded in establishing a station which was a continuous undertaking.”727 The Christian and Missionary Alliance built the first American church in Jerusalem, and by 1914 the Alliance had three mission centers in Palestine.728
The Alliance began work in South America in areas not being reached by Protestant churches in the 1890s. They worked in Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador. Alliance missionaries were also the first to go into Indochina. As Stephen Neil comments about the work of the Alliance in Southeast Asia, “Under the French influence, Indo-China had been almost a closed land to Protestants. But just at the end of our period [1858—1914] that great American inter-denominational body, the Christian and Missionary Alliance was able to enter in—Swiss missionaries in Laos, and others in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1911.”729 The goal of Simpson and the early Alliance to reach the unevangelized people of their day still remains as a core focus of the Christian and Missionary Alliance today.
Simpson’s original goal was to train Christian workers and missionaries as quickly as possible to bypass the long years of college and seminary training that had been the more traditional training for ministers and missionaries. It was Simpson’s aim to nurture and train laypeople to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Simpson would lovingly refer to the graduates at his school as “irregular regulars.” Jacob Klassen comments, “He strove to nurture and train laypeople, ‘his irregulars’ in order that the Gospel might be preached everywhere. He firmly believed that the higher institutions of learning could not possibly train enough witnesses to accomplish the task of world evangelization.”730 Gerald McGraw remarks that Bible college was a speedier and more action-centered training for the “light infantry” of missionary workers.731 A number of other Bible and Missionary Training Institutes followed this lead. Klassen, speaking about Simpson’s influence on the development of a Bible college movement, wrote, “Simpson, in turn, inspired and encouraged the development of regional institutes where leaders shared his doctrinal and missiological convictions. Soon leaders like D. L. Moody also formed institutes which have trained thousands of missionaries throughout the past century.”732 The Bible college movement was a result of Simpson and the Alliance’s burden to see the entire world reached with the gospel.733
Tucker emphasizes the impact Simpson made on missions through the innovation of the Bible college. She writes that Simpson’s “legacy in the area of Christian education extended far beyond the corridors of one institution. His missionary training school concept launched the Bible institute movement that spread out across North America and became the major recruiting source for independent faith mission societies in the decades that followed.”734 This was not only true in North America, but also wherever Alliance missionaries and other faith missionaries went. Bible colleges and institutes were founded to train indigenous people to minister in their own cultures. The Bible institute would become a worldwide movement stretching to every border. The late missiologist J. Herbert Kane wrote, “The ‘lion’s share’ of evangelical missionaries now on the field has been produced by the Bible College movement,” estimating that figure at over 75 percent.735
Another important contribution Simpson made to missions was the formation and development of the missionary conventions for churches in North America. Thomas and Draper describe Simpson’s innovation when they write,
In addition, Simpson evidently invented that unique blend of Bible Conference, camp meeting, evangelistic crusade and missionary promotion meeting that came to be known as the missionary convention. Simpson held such conventions across North America, calling hundreds to Christ, to deeper spiritual life and to a commitment and world evangelization.736
These conventions became so successful that they soon spread out to many cities in both the United States and Canada.737 They would host some of the worlds leading speakers and missionaries.738 A. W. Tozer wrote, “By 1887 they [missionary conventions] had become famous. Thousands flocked to them in the great cities of the North American Continent.”739 These missionary conventions became a chief cornerstone in local churches and branches affiliated with the Alliance. Even today, every Alliance church is required by the local and national constitution to have an annual missionary conference. It was one of the most exciting times of the year in the life of the early Alliance-affiliated churches and branches. It is important to note that these missionary conventions generated tremendous interest from the average churchgoer. Many of the listeners had never been very far from their villages or cities, and a missionary convention brought great excitement to a community. McGraw remarks on those early missionary conventions:
Annual conventions where Bible teaching abounds and furloughing missionaries reported on their work constituted the very core of the Alliance movement. In addition to national, district, and state conventions, every Alliance branch and affiliated independent churches conducted conventions. The missionary cause raised support by appealing to those in attendance to sign a pledge card to commit themselves to God alone to give to missions in the ensuing year. This dignified method of instilling regular giving remains as the lifeblood of missions support more than a century after the Alliance’s inception.740
During the first quarter-century of the Alliance’s existence, the missionary conventions and the “faith pledge” for missions raised close to four million dollars for the missionary movement. This was an amazing sum of money at that time. Simpson developed and promoted the missionary conventions as a means to promote the interest and vision of missions in North America.
One of the more illustrative contributions Simpson made to worldwide evangelism was his missions magazine. In fact, one of the main reasons Simpson left Louisville and went to New York City was his desire to publish an illustrated missionary periodical. Simpson saw this as a way to present missions to the average churchgoer. He knew and understood the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” He felt an illustrated missionary magazine would awaken the zeal and missionary interest in the average Christian. Simpson began publishing his illustrated missionary periodical The Gospel in All Lands in February 1880.741 Soon after he began publishing the periodical, Simpson’s health deteriorated, and so he turned over the responsibility of the magazine to his friend Eugene Smith. Smith, who was a Methodist minister, edited the periodical, which was then taken over by the missionary society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.742
In 1882, Simpson began a second missionary periodical similar to his first called The Word, the Work and the World. This periodical, like his first, contained interdenominational news and missionary articles. Tozer, would later serve as editor of the same magazine, although its name had changed, comments that “in spite of its name it was undoubtedly one of the finest missionary journals ever published by any religious society anywhere. The sweep and range of it are amazing. Its editor had taken the world for his parish.”743 Tozer felt that one reason Simpson began attracting widespread notice as a missionary leader was because of the missionary periodical.744 Simpson kept The Word, the Work and the World focused on worldwide missions and kept its scope interdenominational, and that is why it was popular.745
Simpson’s missionary periodical was a forerunner of other missionary periodicals that exist today. Almost all missionary agencies and denominations have illustrated missionary magazines to inform and promote what their missionaries are doing. The Word, the Work and the World evolved into the Alliance Life, which today is the official magazine of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. It is still popular in evangelical circles and has wide circulation among the members of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Simpson saw his periodical as a way to disciple Alliance members and help them to grow in faith. He saw the importance of training laypeople to serve Christ in the church. Simpson saw the importance of this training not only in North America, but also on the mission field.
Another of Simpson’s contributions was to train national leaders and have them reach their own people. This unique missionary strategy was different than what most mission boards were doing at the time. Many mission societies were reluctant to hand over mission responsibilities to their converts. The objective of Simpson and the early Alliance missionaries was not to establish permanent mission stations but rather to develop native churches. As each church matured, the missionaries would train the local believers to take over their churches. This would allow the missionaries to go to other unreached areas.746 Klassen comments, “Dr. Simpson was the pioneer in the development of training institutes for national pastors and workers overseas.”747 Thomas and Draper commented that even though Simpson was paternalistic in many ways, he was light-years ahead of his contemporaries on the mission field. They wrote:
While colonial governors and the majority of Protestant missions hesitated to give any real responsibility to nationals, Simpson insisted that Christians overseas take responsibility for an enterprise that lay close to his heart. Thus Simpson’s theological understanding of the need for the world evangelization and his commitment to evangelism as an activity of the entire church ensured that his followers spread the Gospel devoid of many of the cultural accretions that western missionaries tended to include in their presentations.748
Simpson and the Alliance made the primary aim and focus of their mission work evangelism and planting churches. This is still the driving force in the Alliance today. This focus was unique among many of the mission boards working at that time. W. R. Hutchinson comments on the Alliance focus by stating, “The Christian and Missionary Alliance was noted for its insistence on the primacy of evangelization and for attempting, like the predominately British China Inland Mission, to avoid all forms of secular cultural imposition.”749 While many missionaries during this period equated bringing civilization to native people with evangelizing, Simpson kept preaching of the gospel as his objective and as that of the early Alliance missionaries. Simpson’s goal was to preach the gospel without Western cultural trappings. Paul A. Varg notes, “It is clear that Dennis, Speer, Mott, and other leaders of the missionary movement were advocates of a program whereby conversion of the heathen was gradually becoming a means to an end, namely an improved society.”750 Simpson contributed to the worldwide mission movement with his emphasis on training national leaders and on evangelism in missions work. These remain as important factors in worldwide evangelization.
The burden for missions was a primary focus of Simpson and the early Alliance. This passion for missions would lead to some failures on the mission field. There were two instances in the Alliance during the late nineteenth century when a group of inadequately prepared missionaries were sent out, and both resulted in disaster on the mission field. These groups were not prepared for the harsh realities of missionary life they would face.751 In 1884, a group of five young graduates of the Missionary Training Institute lead by John Condit set sail for the Congo. Condit soon died of fever in the Congo, while three of the remaining missionaries sold their missionary outfits and returned to North America. Only one stayed and continued with a Baptist mission.752 Later, in 1890, another group went to the Sudan and experienced a similar fate. Although this mission was not officially sponsored by Simpson and the Gospel Tabernacle, they supported this group and their ministry. Four out of the seven died of fever. This group was also not prepared for the harsh rigors of Africa.753 Both incidents taught Simpson a valuable lesson: the importance of proper preparation. As a result, Simpson and the Alliance started screening their missionary candidates better. They began requiring more education and also home service, by which the candidate would serve in a local church. Missions funds were also collected in the central office.754 Although the Alliance continued to lose missionaries to death, future missionaries were better prepared and made a greater impact on their respective fields.
Simpson always kept evangelism and starting indigenous churches as his top priorities. He wanted to present the gospel in the simplest and cheapest way possible.755 Simpson avoided getting involved in building institutions on the mission field because he felt it was not an effective way to evangelize.756 He felt the best way to evangelize was to identify with those who were being evangelized. Whatever group a given missionary was trying to reach, he or she needed to be seen as one of them. Simpson wrote, “If [we] can better reach China by wearing Chinese dress and living in Chinese houses, [we] give up the customs and comforts that [we] may gain some.” Simpson and the Alliance went to areas that were unreached. They were not trying to build on other’s efforts. They developed a specific strategy to reach each group. They studied the conditions, customs, and needs of the people and then determined how they would best be evangelized.757 The goal of the missionary was not to start a missions station but rather to start a native church that would be self-supporting and self-propagating. The goal was then to withdraw the missionaries and let the nationals run the church and plant other churches.758 The national indigenous churches that the early Alliance began were ultimately one of its greatest successes in its missionary endeavor.
The contribution and impact Simpson made on the church’s worldwide outreach at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth are still being felt in the twenty-first century. McGraw summarized it this way:
Simpson’s contribution to missions has proven to be noteworthy. Besides influencing many other missions and individual missionary statesmen, he fathered a “sending” organization that has demonstrated its viability in pioneering, sacrifice, evangelism, and church growth. Regarded by the Bible college movement as its founder, he instigated a kind of institution that has contributed to the education of some seventy-five percent of current evangelical missionaries. Various churches and missions have learned from his plan of the missionary convention and the missionary pledge. His cooperative spirit and his sense of urgency of the missionary task deserve emulation.759
Simpson was one of the great missionary leaders during the Third Great Awakening, and his vision for world evangelism was passed on to the society he founded—the Christian and Missionary Alliance. This is still the denomination’s vision and purpose: to reach the world for Christ in this present generation.
Simpson’s concern for his own spiritual condition spilled over into his concern for the unreached in the world. This burden became his passion while he was in Louisville. It was in Louisville that he became involved in evangelism on a large scale because of his burden for world missions. In New York City, after he left the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church and began the Gospel Tabernacle, this evangelistic outreach blossomed. While in New York City, Simpson and the early Alliance attempted to reach the city with the gospel and also meet the social needs around them. It was here that his burden for world evangelism came to fruition with the birth of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Simpson became one of the leaders of the missionary movement that played a pivotal role in the Third Great Awakening. Today, Simpson is remembered best for his involvement in the missionary movement that characterized the Awakening.
Although Simpson died over ninety years ago, his impact and influence is still being felt by the evangelical church. Although he has been largely forgotten in academic circles, his message still resonates in many evangelical churches today. Indeed, his influence and message is still being felt, especially in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the denomination he founded.
The final chapter of the book will examine Simpson’s impact on the church today.
577. Simpson, Missionary Messages, 4.
578. Thompson, A. B. Simpson, 50.
579. Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 196.
580. Thompson, A. B. Simpson, 44.
581. Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 197.
582. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 13.
583. Simpson, Serving the King, 26.
584. Tozer, Wingspread, 46.
585. Ibid., 47.
586. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 20.
587. Thompson, A. B. Simpson, 55.
588. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 20.
589. Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 197.
590. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 20.
591. Ibid.
592. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 12.
593. Ibid., 13.
594. Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 197.
595. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 13.
596. Ibid.
597. Ibid.
598. Thompson, A. B. Simpson, 119.
599. Ibid.
600. Ibid.
601. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 13.
602. Thompson, A. B. Simpson, 120.
603. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 14.
604. Ibid.
605. Thompson, A. B. Simpson, 10.
606. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 14.
607. Ibid.
608. Ibid., 15.
609. McGraw, “Legacy of A. B. Simpson,” 69.
610. Ibid.
611. Reitz, “A. B. Simpson, Urban Evangelist,” 19.
612. McGraw, “Legacy of A. B. Simpson,” 69.
613. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 157.
614. Ibid.
615. Ibid.
616. Ibid.
617. Reitz, “A. B. Simpson, Urban Evangelist,” 20.
618. Ibid.
619. Ibid.
620. Ibid.
621. Ibid.
622. Evearitt, “Social Gospel vs. Personal Salvation,” 10.
623. Ibid., 2–3.
624. Ibid., 1.
625. Ibid., 3.
626. Reitz, “A. B. Simpson, Urban Evangelist,” 22.
627. Ibid.
628. Ibid.
629. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 22.
630. Ibid., 32–33.
631. Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 5.
632. Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage, 113.
633. Evearitt, “Social Gospel vs. Personal Salvation,” 12.
634. Ibid., 12–13.
635. Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 18.
636. Ibid., 19.
637. Ibid.
638. Ibid.
639. Ibid.
640. Ibid., 17.
641. Ibid.
642. Reitz, “A. B. Simpson, Urban Evangelist,” 23.
643. Hartzfeld, and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 53.
644. Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 70.
645. Ibid., 70.
646. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 269–70.
647. Hartzfeld, and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 52.
648. Ibid., 52–53.
649. Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 16.
650. Evearitt, Body and Soul, 64.
651. Ibid.
652. Reitz, “A. B. Simpson, Urban Evangelist,” 23.
653. Ibid.
654. Hartzfeld, and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 54.
655. Ibid., 53.
656. Ibid., 54.
657. Ibid., 55.
658. Ibid.
659. Ibid.
660. Ibid.
661. Evearitt, Body and Soul, 64.
662. Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 72–73.
663. Ibid., 73.
664. Hartzfeld, and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 56.
665. Ibid., 57.
666. Ibid.
667. Ibid.
668. Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 98–99.
669. Ibid., 99.
670. Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 58.
671. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 61.
672. Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 129.
673. Ibid.
674. Ibid.
675. Ibid., 130.
676. Reitz, “A. B. Simpson, Urban Evangelist,” 4.
677. Evearitt, Body and Soul, 72.
678. Ibid.
679. Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 121.
680. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 166.
681. Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 122.
682. Ibid., 123.
683. Ibid., 135.
684. Hartzfeld, and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 59.
685. Ibid.
686. Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 136.
687. Ibid.
688. Ibid.
689. Ibid., 136–37.
690. Moberg, Great Reversal, 30.
691. Evearitt, Body and Soul, 138.
692. Ibid., 139.
693. Ibid.
694. Ibid.
695. Ibid.
696. George W. Reitz, interview with the author, February 12, 2003.
697. Daniel J. Evearitt, interview with the author, February 12, 2003.
698. Marty, Missions and Ecumenical Expressions, 3.
699. Ibid.
700. Noll, History of Christianity in the United States, 2.
701. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, 290–91.
702. Ibid., 291.
703. McGraw, “Legacy of A. B. Simpson,” 76.
704. Ibid.
705. Ibid.
706. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, 71.
707. Kane, Wanted: World Christians, 207.
708. Ibid.
709. Ibid.
710. Ibid., 208.
711. Ibid.
712. Orr, Light of the Nations, 273.
713. Gangel, “Bible College,” 34.
714. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 30.
715. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, 291.
716. Ibid., 291–92.
717. Hartzfeld, and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 269.
718. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 105.
719. Goddard et al., Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Missions, 133.
720. Ibid., 33.
721. Simpson, Missionary Messages, 133.
722. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 7.
723. Ibid., 6.
724. Goddard et al., Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Missions, 133.
725. Glover, Progress of Worldwide Missions, 155.
726. Ibid.
727. Latourette, History of the Expansion of Christianity, 425–26.
728. Ibid., 41.
729. Neil, History of Christian Missions, 346–47.
730. Hartzfeld, and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 252.
731. McGraw, “Legacy of A. B. Simpson,” 75.
732. Hartzfeld, and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 255.
733. Goddard et al., Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Missions, 134.
734. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, 294.
735. Gangel, “Bible College,” 35.
736. Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 208.
737. Tozer, Wingspread, 96.
738. Ibid.
739. Ibid.
740. McGraw, “Legacy of A. B. Simpson,” 74.
741. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 37.
742. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 21.
743. Tozer, Wingspread, 94.
744. Ibid.
745. Ibid., 95.
746. Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 211.
747. Ibid., 256.
748. Ibid., 211.
749. Hutchinson, Errand to the World, 128.
750. Marty, Missions and Ecumenical Expressions, 13.
751. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 59.
752. Ibid., 60.
753. Ibid., 87–88.
754. Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 255.
755. Ibid., 210.
756. Ibid.
757. Ibid., 208.
758. Ibid., 211.
759. McGraw, “Legacy of A. B. Simpson,” 76.