CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 11
STUDY AND RESEARCH
When, in 1940, Edwin Orr began to consider studying again, he had behind him ten years of ordinary schooling and three years of study in the City of Belfast College of Technology, with passes in five subjects in examinations set by the University of London, in which he matriculated later.1 There his education was interrupted to allow him to become the bread-winner of the family because of the death of his father and elder brother.?
This was a great disappointment to him. Under normal circumstances he would have completed university training with distinction.
God had led him along different paths. For six years he had worked in an office. For six or more years he had travelled widely, preaching the gospel of Christ in many countries. He was receiving his education in an unusual way—some years in business, some years in lay evangelism, wide travel in many lands, successful literary work. These experiences brought out many of his latent gifts. Even so he felt the need for disciplined study in well-known institutions under men who had devoted their whole life to study, research and teaching. There are very clear advantages in such study, yet Orr knew that many evangelical friends thought of evangelists as men whose gifts would be spoiled by formal study.
Orr knew that D. L. Moody had been greatly blessed in his evangelistic ministry though he had received only the rudiments of education. He also knew that Moody felt this gap in the development of his mind and personality so keenly that he devoted himself to founding schools where any boy or girl could receive an education. Moody anyhow was a remarkable exception.
Many of the great evangelists of the past had received university education and had held academic posts of responsibility. John
Wesley had been a fellow of Lincoln College in Oxford and had enjoyed all the advantages of moving in university circles.
Ober College. These men were ineeliesteal® giants a a a fully equipped to meet other well-educated men on a footing g of full equality. longing to serve the students of his day and generation, and wanting urgently to serve as a chaplain in the armed forces, decided that his own ministry among students and soldiers would be more effective if he had adequate academic qualifications.® \ Ss d . It was true that he had been preaching for many years with great acceptance to large congregations, and was then serving as associate pastor in the largest church in Canada.* When he mentioned his desire to his senior colleague, Oswald
Smith, the Canadian asked him why he needed to bother with formal education. Did not Orr realize that he could go on preaching for years on the strength of a unique experience?
Did not Orr realize that there were hundreds of thousands of Christian people eager to hear the man they had read about?
To this Orr replied that he knew that he had been given an unusual opportunity, but that there were many young men regarded as successful in their twenties who were failures in their forties. Orr did not want to adopt the cheap lavices that some such men used to maintain their crowds.®
Theological teachers know that students under them derive most profit after some years of practical experience in the school of life. Eager and receptive, unlike young men in their teens, they are able to assimilate readily what is given to them in college lectures. The dozen years of unusual opportunities which Edwin
Orr had enjoyed now stood him in good stead. go. he Vv sp wea registrar told Orr that it would take three years for him to complete the Bachelor of Arts degree; and after that, another three to complete the Bachelor of Divinity de memseae TET ey eae TENE TPT He felt that the
utmost time he could spare for study was three years. After much prayer, he entered himself as a student in Northern
Baptist Theological Seminary in Chicago for the Th.B. degree.* Having the equivalent of American junior college standards, he was permitted to take by examination a year's work in subjects for which he was already prepared. He next registered for the M.A. course in Northwestern University near by, taking geography as his main subject, for he was at an unusual advantage in taking geography. At the same time, he took the courses required for the B.D. degree at Northern.
This meant carrying a full load at the Seminary in morning work and a full load in university classes each afternoon, but he managed, with good grades, went on to register himself as a | candidate for the Doctor of Theology degree in Northern Baptist
Seminary, carrying courses also in various denominational theological colleges in the Chicago area—Brethren, Lutheran,
Methodist, Presbyterian and even Jesuit.
Orr had come in contact with many churches in the course of his ministry; he wanted to work intelligently with them.
What did Christian denominations stand for? What were their convictions ?
He chose as the subject for his thesis the mid-Nineteenth Century Awakening in America. Till then, he had been reading here and there about it, for pleasure.
Now he was to go deep into the matter. He had to read whatever had been written on his subject, weigh the evidence carefully and make sure of the facts. His wide travels and knowledge of the movements of the Spirit helped greatly.
Such a variety of courses at the same time was possible only in American graduate schools and by means of extraordinarily heavy work. For three years he attended as many as thirty-two lectures a week and wrote papers and examinations required, often sitting far into the night to complete his full assignments.
His overall marks were 90 per cent plus.'
It was not that he was favoured by the faculty in any way.
In fact, his Dean was so anxious to slow him down that—to make up for classes and an examination missed though preaching for a sick professor between terms—he assirned Orr 560 questions to answer and twenty-four papers to write in the H
month before graduation. Orr hired two stenographers and ~ worked night and day to meet the deadline.
At Northern, which was fully accredited by the North Central Association of Universities and Colleges, Edwin Orr enjoyed the fellowship of classmates marked for distinction—Dr. Adrian
Heaton, Dr. T. Leonard Lewis and Dr. John Herrman, soon to become presidents of colleges, Dr. Torrey M. Johnson who became founder of Youth for Christ International, and Dr.
Carl F. H. Henry, theologian and editor of Christianity Today.*® In fact, Carl Henry arranged Orr's first series of evangelistic meetings in Chicago, and Adrian Heaton drove with Orr each evening 135 miles to Champaign-Urbana to fulfil a week's ministry, leaving Chicago at 4 p.m. and arriving back at 1 a.m.
Orr's interest in evangelistic meetings was still powerful and he preached on an average at twenty evangelistic meetings a month in addition to his many courses of study, reporting many conversions. His professor of Evangelism was Dr. Faris
D. Whitesell, author of many books on the subject.® His professor of Greek was Dr. Julius' R. Mantey, co-author of the standard textbook, Dana & Mantey's Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament. His professor of Church History' was'a Norwegian, Dr. Peder Stiansen, who made the subject. live for his students.
Orr's thesis on the American Awakening of 1858 was published after the War.!° The present writer has often been interested to see that when the rains fall after periods of drought farmers are tremendously busy. During the drought nothing can be done. The soil is too hard to be ploughed. No seeds can be sown; they cannot sprout without rain. Gardens which are irrigated with water from wells by painful human efforts look dry and parched; they are waiting eagerly for showers. When the rains fall, farmers take their ploughs to turn the land which is damp and soft. They sow seeds in fields dug up and ready.
The standing crops in gardens get new life; their dust is washed away and the roots of the plants are watered heavily. It was thus that pastors and laymen in America laboured in 1858.
Some may have been critical and indifferent but those who had vision and energy worked day and night. Thousands of men and women were influenced by the revivals. The leaders welcomed
these thronging crowds and arranged services for them; they met them in private in ones and twos and gave them spiritual advice.
A major outcome of the Revival was a million professed converts. Orr emphasizes this extraordinarily large number.
In any spiritual movement it is difficult to be quite accurate about its statistics. While the author has ransacked diligently the relevant church records they cannot be expected to give us completely accurate figures of true conversions.
It is quite probable that thousands of converts who joined the Churches were not profoundly changed. The transformation in character might not have been deep. For some months or even for some years, they might have continued in their new experience. But after a time, they might have gone back to their old life of sin.
The conversion of a man can be said to be real only when its results last throughout his whole lifetime. We cannot trace the histories of all:these million new members. We must allow a large margin for the many spiritual casualties which normally occur in life. Human nature being what it is, men do not always live on spiritual hill-tops. While all this is true, Orr's investigations prove abundantly that thousands of men: and women were profoundly influenced by the mid-Nineteenth Century
Evangelical Awakening.
Orr had planned his theological study in view of the Second World War, which commenced in 1939. His mother was in London which was being bombed continuously. His wife's brother had been killed in the North African Desert where his own brother was serving. Orr found it: hard.to-study in the quiet 'and peace of a theological college."
He carried on his researches at a rapid pace. He read numerous biographies and histories related to the period. He naturally expected to get a good deal of information from the religious magazines which he studied. But to his great surprise he found some of his most valuable materials in the daily papers, yellowing with time.
In 1943, Northern Baptist Seminary decided that he had fully completed the requirements for the Doctor of Theology degree and the relevant diploma was handed to him. By that. time, Orr wore chaplain's uniform, in which he addressed the: convocation of the Seminary.??
How was Orr able to carry six years' work in three calendar years ? I asked Charles W. Koller, President Emeritus of Northern
Baptist Seminary, who cited Orr's "extraordinary capacity for study'. He wrote:
[Orr] first earned the five-year Bachelor of Theology degree, then a Master of Arts degree at Northwestern University, then the Bachelor of Divinity and Doctor of Theology degrees at Northern, and finally the D.Phil degree at Oxford University. So far as I know, no student here has ever matched this record and covered so much material in so short a time.
At no time did Mr. Orr seem to be laboring under any particular strain. A bright mind and a rare giftedness for sustained concentration appear to be the only explanation.
He held weeks of special meetings with the Seminary in succeeding years. There was a powerful spiritual impact, a true revival with many confessions, rededications and reconciliations. He has been mightily used of God.14
Dr. Peder Stiansen, formerly Dean of Northern, wrote me along the same lines of assessment. He had served»as Orr's supervisor and close friend. The Th.D. dissertation was published in 1952 by Marshall, Morgan & Scott of London with the title The Second Evangelical Awakening in America. This was after Orr had made his reputation by his D.Phil. thesis submitted to Oxford.
Mr. A. Lindsay Glegg, the industrialist, commented to me that "British people (a little unkindly) questioned whether Orr's
Amercian degrees were of much value". He was delighted when subsequent studies remedied that!25
* * * Edwin Orr had just witnessed a fierce air-raid in one of the islands of the Pacific. Heavy damage had been done. In harrowing situations, men around him had perished. When would it all end 21° Orr was walking along the beach-head alone, absorbed in thought. What would happen to him? Would he also die out there or would he return to normal civilian life when the war was over? Was there still a work for him to do afterwards?
That night there came a clear assurance from God that he
would survive—for two important purposes. He would live to write a history of the Second Evangelical Awakening in the English-speaking world. He would live to see beginnings of a third Evangelical Awakening. The conviction filled him with new peace and purpose.
At the end of the war, Chaplain Orr hitch-hiked 24,000 miles from the occupied city of Tokyo to the University of Oxford.1"
He had always been greatly attracted by Oxford as the senior University in the English-speaking world. His historical reading had convinced him of the immense part which Oxford had played in the religious and intellectual life of the world. In its many libraries and lecture-rooms he would find the scholarly spirit so necessary for writing a thesis on the great movements of the past. And he needed the endorsement of a great university for the publication of his work.
The first setback that Orr experienced arose from the fact that the Overseas Adviser with whom he had corresponded regarding enrolling had died, and as all his letters had been written in quaint longhand there were no records to show that he had even applied. On top of that, Oxford was so overcrowded with returning ex-servicemen that the faculties were refusing to take any more and lodgings were impossible to find within twenty-five miles. It looked impossible.
But Orr's British publishers helped him to find a house, and the Faculty concerned was persuaded to consider his application. The Master of Arts degree from Northwestern was sufficient to admit him to advanced standing, and the Doctor of Theology degree from Northern was considered the equivalent of Oxford's first research degree. Orr made, use of a scholarship for study given by the United States Government to those whose studies had been interrupted by the war. So he registered himself as an advanced student for a D.Phil. degree.'* Then his problems began.
More than forty years ago, between 1919 and 1922, I wrote a dissertation for the D.Phil. degree in Oxford University; so I have some idea of the requirements of the University and the kind of help which the University customarily gave. A supervisor was appointed by the University to guide the student. He was -an expert in the field. The supervisor whom he met at
regular intervals mentioned the courses in the University which ~ might be of use in his particular line of research and the titles of books available on the subject.
In the University of Oxford there were many research workers studying for post-graduate degrees. These scholars came to Oxford from all parts of the world, so the social life of the University with all its opportunities for informal meetings and talks provided stimulating contacts with them. The libraries at Oxford at hand were always supplemented by the libraries in London, only an hour's railway journey from Oxford.
In Orr's case, the supervisor was the Reverend Claude Jenkins, the Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford.1® Orr said that his supervisor gave him "patient, kindly, forceful and pertinent help, advice and criticism." A decade later, obituary notices in Oxford paying tribute to Professor Jenkins' undoubted erudition underlined the fact that he was considered to have been an authentic Oxford
"character". Celibate, wearing a heavy cassock day and night (students insisted that he slept in it and sewed it up for the winter, but this is a legend), he seldom ventured out of his quarters in Christ Church quadrangle, though he never missed an Oxford Union debate. Edwin Orr was thus privileged to have a brilliant man to guide him. Although considered eccentric,
Professor Jenkins was a clever historian, head of his department, Archbishop Temple's chaplain. One of Orr's. fellow-students took a course under Jenkins in a highly advanced subject, so advanced indeed that the class dwindled until only Jenkins and this student remained. But the professor faithfully gave the lonely student the full benefit of his scholarship. Dr. Jenkins' cat-naps were notorious. On one occasion, he fell asleep while lecturing, dozed for ten minutes, awakened, then proceeded with the lecture from the exact point of interruption. Finally, Professor
Jenkins, a middle High Churchman, was a very great saint in human kindness. One of Orr's colleagues had a financial setback, and the good professor dipped into his own pocket very substantially to enable the struggling ex-soldier to continue.
In Orr's chosen field, there were no published authorities.
Professor Jenkins endeavoured to persuade Orr to give up his line of research on account of this paucity of published sources.
So Orr made the fullest use of the many libraries within his reach.*° He also consulted the scholars who lived in Oxford,
Cambridge, Edinburgh and London and found no one with any knowledge of his subject. It was not until he crossed to Belfast that he managed to enlist Professor Scott Pearson as academic support for his projected thesis. The scholars were right—there were no published books covering Orr's project.
He had the academic good fortune to embark on a project which involved so much primary research that he became an expert.
Thus from mid-1946 to mid-1948, Orr was able to concentrate in the quiet quadrangles of Oxford on this task of research. The conditions under which he worked now were quite different from the adventurous life he had led as an Air Force chaplain during the previous three years. They were also very different from his three years of theological study in Chicago, when he had attended many heavy and exacting courses of lectures.
During his Oxford study, Orr's interest in a world-wide revival was kindled once again. Young American evangelists called on him at his home at Wolvercote, where he was resident with his family. He sought to inspire them with his own longing for Revival. These evangelists would spend the whole day with him and often talk far into the night about the need for Revival.
He was now becoming something of an authority on the subject of revivals."
On one occasion, Edwin Orr happened to be showing a younger evangelist around the lovely city of Oxford." He took him up a rickety stairway in Lincoln College, unlocked a couple of doors, watching the reactions of his friend as he looked around the study-bedroom of students long since departed.
The American was impressed.
"Where is this, Edwin ?"' he asked.
'Guess!' said Orr.
His friend shrugged his shoulders. Then he began to inspect the panelled walls, the Latin inscriptions, and the souvenirs of the past. In the alcove which at one time held a student's bed the Carolinian paused before a wood-cut; and his eyes lighted up with interest.
'"'That's John Wesley ... and that's Charles Wesley . . . that's
George Whitefield ... I don't recognize the others. Say, where is this?"
It was John Wesley's bedroom in Lincoln College, where he and a group of students had gathered together in religious discussions, thus forming the Holy Club which gave rise to the mighty movement of Methodism.
"How old was John Wesley then?"
"About twenty-six," Orr ventured.
'""You mean that all that began with a group of students on their own?"
That evangelist was a comparatively unknown young man named Billy Graham who had been blessed through Orr's prewar ministry. Before they left Lincoln College they kneeled together, to pray for another great awakening:
"O Lord," prayed Billy Graham, "'do it again!"
What was this Second Evangelical Awakening?* in Britain about which Edwin Orr wrote? In 1857, an extraordinary religious awakening began in the United States, and in 1859 it crossed the Atlantic as an active movement of the Holy Spirit in the United Kingdom. It affected all the denominations. There were a million professed conversions in Great Britain and Ireland.
Armin Gesswein, a Lutheran expert, wrote:"4
It seems utterly amazing that a spiritual awakening so volcanic in eruption and world-wide in its flow—and marked by some historians as the event of the century—could have become almost extinct in the mind of man! By his pen, more than any other man, Edwin Orr has kept it alive. Though that Revival is now a hundred years old, its story and testimony are among the most telling of our time.
Two Principals of Oxford Colleges, Nathaniel Micklem and Julian Thornton-Duesbery, were appointed as Orr's examiners.
They told him frankly that they had no major criticisms to offer. The coveted D.Phil. degree was conferred upon Jacobus
Edwinus Orr by the Vice-Chancellor of the University in June 1948. Professor Jenkins broke his rule and appeared at the ceremony in full regalia. Orr's patient helpmeet was on hand to see her husband receive the honour in scarlet and. blue.
Edwin Orr rendered a real service to the whole Christian Church by writing his scholarly accounts of the Second Evan-
gelical Awakening in America and Britain. Many of the reports were buried in newspaper files not easily accessible to the public.
Single volumes had been written about the Revival in certain localities. Biographies of the leaders of the Revival had also been written. Edwin Orr brought together into a compact and readable form these inspiring stories.
Orr performed another service. He took the long range view and considered the many events which happened during a period of fifty years as integral parts of a mighty movement of the Spirit.
The Oxford thesis was published by Marshall, Morgan & Scott, Ltd. of London with the title: The Second Evangelical
Awakening in Britain. It was warmly received. The Church of England Newspaper regarded it as one of the best ten books published during the year 1949. Dr. William E. Sangster,
President of the Methodist Conference, recommended ll ministers in Conference to read the book.*® It received similar commendation from Presbyterian and Baptist authorities.
Soon it was cited in standard texts, such as Latourette.
The President of the Royal Historical Society, Professor R.
Seton-Watson, personally recommended J. Edwin Orr for full Fellowship in that distinguished body of historians seriously elected as authorities in their fields.2® Orr later became a member of the American Historical Association. Already a Fellow of the Royal Geographical and American Geographical Societies, and later of the American Scientific Affiliation, Edwin Orr was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature whose roster of Fellows has included the greatest names in English Literature.