Foreword
Foreword
Fame,” the wise old adage reminds us, “is fleeting,” and one generation’s heroes are often largely forgotten by the next. Some, of course, deserve to be forgotten, while others need to be remembered as inspirational examples of uncommon wisdom, outstanding leadership, and good old-fashioned common sense. Albert Benjamin Simpson, the distinguished founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, clearly belongs among those who are eminently worth remembering. Pastor, theologian, author, evangelist, educator, hymn-writer, and poet, A. B. Simpson, as he was known by thousands of his contemporary admirers, provides today’s global Christian church with a clear and much-needed voice.
Thankfully, we now have a wonderful new tool for rediscovering and exploring the life and ministry of this truly amazing servant of God. Michael Yount’s well-researched and beautifully written new book provides exactly what we have needed to begin this adventure, and the gifted editors at Wipf & Stock Publishers are to be congratulated in making it available in this exciting new volume. Indeed, Simpson’s own insatiable hunger to reach a needy world with the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ; his abiding concern for the poor, the unwanted, the infirmed, the neglected, and the homeless; and his passionate commitment to the proclamation of Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King are as needed in our own day as they were in his.
Born on Prince Edward Island in 1843, Simpson was raised in a Christian home and converted under the ministry of H. Grattan Guinness in 1859. After graduating from Toronto’s Knox College in 1865, he was ordained by the Presbyterian Church in Canada and subsequently served as the pastor of Knox Presbyterian Church (Ontario), Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church (Louisville), Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church (New York City), and the New York Tabernacle (New York City). Deeply touched by the physical and spiritual needs of the thousands of immigrants who were arriving daily in New York City during the final decades of the nineteenth century, Simpson searched for more effective means of addressing their physical needs, of providing much-needed educational resources, and of sharing with them the joyous good news of new life in Jesus Christ. The “Christian church,” as Simpson phrased it in A Larger Christian Life (1890), “can be at once the mother and home of every form of help and blessing which Jesus came to give to lost and suffering men, the birthplace and the home of souls, the fountain of healing and cleansing, the sheltering home for the orphan and distressed, the school for the culture and training of God’s children, the armory where they are equipped for the battle of the Lord and the army which fights those battles in His name.”
For anyone who hungers for a more authentic faith, a deeper commitment to the spread of the glorious gospel, a more profound experience of life in Christ, and a more active engagement with a needy world, this book is for you! It will engage your mind, warm your heart, and broaden your vision of all that Christian life can be.
Garth M. Rosell
Senior Research Professor of Church History
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Hamilton, Massachusetts
. Simpson, Larger Christian Life, 278–79.