CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 13
QUADRANGLE AND CAMPUS
During his first two years of ministry in the countries of Europe, Edwin Orr had no experience of ministering to students. But he was of college age and had a warm sympathy for young people. There is no published record of his having talked to university students in his first two years. It was at the end of 1935, in the United States, that he began to find opportunity in the colleges and other institutions of higher learning.
Abraham Vereide, founder of the International Christian Leadership movement, welcomed Orr to Seattle late in 1935 and accompanied him to the University of Washington campus.
He observed:!
It was a singular thing to meet on the university campus with the fine body of university students to hear Mr. Orr's fearless presentation of God's plan of redemption through Jesus Christ, given with a clarity, tenderness and power which, gripped hearts and led students to a decision.
Sterling Keyes, a student leader, commented that a number of the students were taken by surprise when they realized the nature of the series. Some came, as in a speech class, to criticize, but remained to profess faith.
Edwin Orr spoke at other university gatherings in the United States in 1936.
In 1936, Edwin Orr addressed meetings in the Universities of New Zealand and Australia—the Evangelical Union in the University of Sydney reported a breath of revival; but Orr spoke not only to Christian students on the Christian life, but he used somewhat sensational methods in reaching the crowd of unbelievers in the colleges, indicated by a student report in facetious strain :?
A SHEEP IN WOLF's CLOTHING
The University feels that it has been taken in, as indeed
it has. For days our notice boards have been aflame with the news that one Edwin Orr was to address us on "My Adventures in Soviet Russia: Why I am a Revolutionist!"' Of course, the notices did say that the speaker was sponsored by the Adelaide University Christian Fellowship, but then we all thought that that body, inspired by a desire to hear all sides of a question, had invited a travelling comrade to come along and give us "the oil straight from the. gusher". The Students' League was all agog; the Politics Club a little restive on Monday morning.
The Rennie Theatre was three parts full. Even the remarks of the Chairman (the Hon. Sir David Gordon) left the general expectancy. undiminished. Then Orr himself rose to speak.
The Irish wit called forth much laughter. The admission that "J am a regular Bolshi'', if somewhat flippant, raised hopes even higher.
The report recounted the utter astonishment felt by the students as the evangelist delivered his address, telling of his experience with God.
In facetious student strain, it concluded:
Then Mr. Orr told us what sort of a revolutionist he himself was. Revolution he defined as a complete change from one state to another. He—like Shylock—wanted from each of us the pound of flesh which included the heart, but only as a loan. The heart he would return completely rebored and decarbonized, and so the revolution would be effected. The world would be well again with sin thus extracted. This evangelical revivalist-revolutionary displayed a whole-hearted faith in the authority of the Biblical text. We may say quite definitely that Mr. Orr never at any time misrepresented himself or his attitude, but we shall in the future treat circumspectly anything bearing the initials AUCF.
In these reports of student meetings in Canada, United States, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, there is no hint of the ministry of popular apologetics which Orr was later to exercise upon student platforms. For this development, one must look to his military experience.
After serving a tour of duty as base chaplain of Westover Field in Massachusetts, Chaplain Orr was assigned to Jefferson
"At Jefferson Saends tiers 'were ~ ~sdmetinies' baa 'many as "68,000 men and seventeen chaplains were ministering to them. one of them Jewish, four Roman Catholic and a dozen Protestant.*
_ The aviation cadets to whom Orr ministered had completed a first-rate high school or junior college curriculum. Many of them had received university education. Some were Masters of Arts or Science. A few were Doctors of Philosophy. These cadets in training at Jefferson Barracks were of the intellectual
_ type, not easily swayed by emotions. Orr was delighted with the prospect of working with men of this calibre. His own recent theological studies had given him a new confidence. He felt that, first, he had to get the men to attend a church service;
second, to get the men to make church attendance a habit; and - third, to preach the Word so attractively that they would respond themselves and bring others in. e realized the supreme need for this work and also God's call to him to engage in it. Now he was free to concentrate upon winning men for .
Christ. It was reported that in his ministry at Jefferson Barracks 587 men decided to follow Christ. These results filled him with gratitude as well as humility. But he was unable to do more than help the converts for the limited period of their training. on playing He was transferred o hospital for treatment of migraine headaches. It being a long
_walk from the hospital he notified Chaplain Orr of the termination of his services.5 To Orr's surprise, he kept coming back to play, the messages claiming his attention even more than the music, for he had been the organist in a fashionable Illinois church where conversion was never mentioned.
One evening, the pianist came to announce that he was being discharged as incurable. He added:
"Chaplain, I have been following every sermon you have preached, and I think I have grasped the idea, or plan, or whatever you call it, of salvation. I never knew before that I needed to be saved. Of course, I knew that I was a sinner, but not a
& "As long as you like, id Orr, eine debra: abl ae eae"
_ "I believe that Christ some way or other is. the Saviour of sinners. I have repented of my sins, and will be glad to give them up. But I have a will of my own, and I have plans for my own life. Now, how do I know what God may require me to ne do, or how do I know that He won't interfere with my plans, for instance, music ?''
"Do you believe that God's plan is best?'
"Yes! But I am only human, and would like to know what' Sin the future before I commit myself."
"Listen," said the Chaplain, "when I raised my right hand © and took the oath, and was expected to swear to obey the officers placed in command over me, did I say 'Colonel, you've got to explain to me first what you are going to do with me, and what part of the front you'll send me to!' I would have been told that I had to promise to obey before any plans could be revealed
— to me. Do you see?"
Light began to dawn upon his face.
- "Well," he said, after a long pause, "there's nothing else to i. do but to make the vow, is there?" in prayer. He committed his will.
-© On Wednesday night following, the crowd of new men was so large that they had to sit down in the open field in the dark, the chapel being too small, while Chaplain Orr and his assistant went off to look for a lantern. When they returned fifteen minutes after starting
— time, they were surprised to see someone already addressing the men. It was the newly converted pianist, who wound up in mild confusion when he saw his Chaplain. He saluted in a rather embarrassed way, and said:
"Sir, I hope you'll forgive the presumption. I came to say good-bye to you, and when I found this crowd of men waiting for you, I felt I simply had to tell them how happy I have been since Sunday night."
At Jefferson Barracks, thanks to Orr's effort to reach the incoming trainees, together with the preaching of the Word in a way designed to create and: maintain interest, attendances of
Protestant men in one area reached an all-time high of 1,522.
This appeared to be an impossible figure, for of 3,000 assigned _ to Chaplain Orr, 1,500 were given week-end passes and left the field. Then it was discovered that many men were drawing
Sunday passes valid from 6 a.m. but waiting on the post for the services, or going to town and returning with friends.
Attendance actually reached the point where it doubled the attendance at the Sunday night cinema, and the Special Services officer complained to the Commanding Officer about the competition. Orr was delighted to hear of the complaint:'
One of the biggest thrills of this religious awakening occurred when we drew twice the number attending the Sunday evening movie in Theater No. 1 which served the groups in our chapel area and two other areas besides. We had 750 men that night in the Wing Bowl.
This kind of work, which was pure evangelism of an elementary sort, produced vital apologetics. The lessons Orr learned at Westover Field and in Jefferson Barracks were applied throughout his military chaplaincy with great success. He used the same methods in reaching German prisoners of war at Oxford in 1947.
* * * After his return from Oxford in 1948, Edwin Orr began to devote considerable time to primary evangelistic work among non-Christian students. A new spirit of enquiry and receptiveness to the Christian Gospel was now active in arts as well as in theological colleges.
Liberal theologians confessed that Modernism was bankrupt. Philosophers already accepted the fact that Humanism had its severe limits and some of them
(such as C. E. M. Joad) had become Christians.
In this atmosphere of open-minded enquiry and earnest search for truth, Edwin Orr delighted to exercise his ministry, for his recent work as a post-graduate student in a first-rate university had taught him the value of scientific research and had given him a new confidence in dealing with alert and critical youth.
As an Air Force Chaplain and then at the University he had come to know intimately all sorts and conditions of men and
} had realized the force of the moral and intellectual problems with which they were struggling. His love for young people, his fund of stories, his quick wit, his friendly manners, his wide interests and other social gifts, stood him in good stead.
_ It so happened that Orr was invited to join a team of speakers at the Religious Emphasis Week at the University of Washington in February 1949.° The student who had been placed in charge of the lecture arrangements appeared to be out of sympathy with evangelistic meetings of any kind, even of the serious lecture type. Consequently, this student took it upon himself to arrange that the visiting rabbi, priest, and minister would lecture in the Hub, the centre of student activities, while the avowed evangelist would be permitted to hold forth off campus in Eagleson Hall where evangelism would prove "'less academically embarrassing". What happened is shown in the Chairman's report:® The Religious Council of the University of Washington invited Dr. Orr to lecture 12th-17th February 1950. Dr. Orr arrived a week early and commenced an unofficial, unadvertised series of meetings on campus for Christians for the deepening of spiritual life. Soon extra chairs had to be brought into the classrooms. The second week, the official series began in the Eagleson Hall but the accommodation was so overcrowded with students sitting on the floor and standing in the doorways that it became necessary to move to larger and larger lecture halls on campus, each one becoming crowded to-capacity. The approach was evidential, dealing with questions of faith, philosophy, science and reason, described by the student "Daily" as "religion in easy-to-take doses".
Evenings were spent in the fraternities and sororities.
It became necessary to continue for another week, with classroom meetings for skeptics on campus and an evening series in University Presbyterian Church. The meetings ended with overflowing crowds; and a great number of young people declared their faith in Jesus Christ. More than 20,000 aggregate attended the lectures in Seattle.
Moving from Oregon and Washington to British Columbia, Orr lectured in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia.1°
A prominent article by a student columnist in the daily Ubyssey
Y prea! eisai ctdetedes 'orthod opera, saying that it was not right for the sa ist trail boys to — upset other folks' lives with unproven revelation of dubious
— : interpretation. It ended with the | paragraph:
The Student Christian Movement , representing the liberal tradition in organized Christianity, and the Inter-Varsity Christian
Fellowship, representing the conservative, both agreed that this blast from:a rationalist deserved an answer from the Christians as Christians. Together therefore they challenged the columnist to debate his last sentence.
_ The debate was held in-an engineering lecture hall, the largest available, and it was utterly overcrowded by faculty and students, who sat even on the floor space and stood out in the corridors.
It was a friendly debate. Edwin Orr's opponent began by defining the topic as the Social Philosophy of Jesus Christ, declaring
_ that it was difficult to decide just what Christ taught seeing that the New Testament Gospels were written four hundred years after Christ died. This was not hard to invalidate, and Orr did it gently.
It was enough to show what the evangelical Christians had done for the working man, what Lord Shaftesbury had done
_ for social reform, what Kier Hardie had done for Labour, what all Christians had done in initiating schools, colleges and universities until the enlightened State took over the responsibility, what evangelicals had done in prison reform, what Wilberforce
_ and Finney and Livingstone had done in the anti-slavery movement, what Christians had done in starting hospitals and aslyums and leprosaria until State enterprise had followed suit, and what
Christianity had done for women and children."
The opposition's case was so weak that Orr had to be doubly careful and courteous to avoid a swing-over of popular sympathy to the underdog. The debate concluded with an explanation of the dynamic of the Christian faith. It was pre-arranged that no vote would be taken, so there was no visible result of the debate; but a number of men at the next evangelistic meeting
BG me,
: count: of South: a hieae 'and New Zealand aad ges In sae these Countries there developed a ministry among high school
_ students which surprised and delighted the visitor.
Edwin Orr often said that he had found the intelligence ie coe the high school senior in British countries equal to that of the college student in the United States. Indeed, high school seniors in the British countries are admitted as American sophomores when they complete their year and transfer to an American | university.
In March 1953, the Principal of Rondebosch Boys' High School near Capetown invited Orr to address a school assembly on "Science and Faith''. The response was so enthusiastic that a voluntary assembly was called, attended by the whole body of students, at which Orr explained the Christian faith. One hundred and fifteen lads requested a measure of counsel. Their housemaster, Stan Edkins, reported six months later that 100 of the inquirers were attending a weekly class of instruction. Five years later, Principal Edkins reported in retrospect that the great majority of these inquirers had continued in the faith and that of these a number had commenced study for the ministry of the — ot : churches.?# As a result of the Rondebosch meetings, school after school opened its doors to the lecturer. The first meeting in each high school was an official assembly arranged by the Principal, but the next was voluntary, attended by the school chaplains or interested clergy, attracting from 60 per cent to 100 per cent of school enrolment. Invitations came from both Afrikaans and English-speaking high schools. In all, there were more than
10,000 inquirers registered, but these included four categories— Christians making a first public profession of faith, the lukewarm returning to active profession, the uncertain entering into assurance of salvation, and the hitherto uninterested professing Christ.
The Reverend Edgar Wilkinson, President of the Methodist Conference of South Africa in 1958, commented thus after five years :1° This ministry met with remarkable response, and there are many young people throughout South Africa (some still
In New Zealand, the Principals of High S Schools open their ' doors for similar lectures by Edwin Orr in 1956. The Principal — of Southland Technical College in Invercargill wrote to his © fellow Headmasters as follows :*4 His address was one of the most worth while from every point of view that I have ever heard from a visitor to a school.
It held the lively and responsive interest of every pupil present, and won the appreciative commendation of all the teachers.
'Meetings were also arranged in the various centres of the University of New Zealand. Prof. E. M. Blaiklock reported in Christianity Today :15
It is natural that I should first commend Dr. Orr as a student's evangelist, for such preachers are a rare breed.
Christian colleagues in universities and other institutions of higher learning will, I am sure, understand that relief with which a visitor is welcomed who can preach to students with a clear understanding of their problems and prejudices, without slurring the essentials of the faith and without embarrassing academic sponsors by painful anecdote, arrogant dogmatism or irrelevance. Orr clearly understands students.
There is light and shade in his preaching and he is rich in relevant anecdote, but the solid biblical foundation in which he builds his appeal is always evident and ably laid. The response is heartening.
Edwin Orr continued this type of ministry in Australia in 1957, beginning in Melbourne High School, whose principal, the famous cricketer, W. M. Woodfull, informed his colleagues
:16
Dr. J. Edwin Orr was recently invited to speak to the Assembly of Students at Melbourne High School. Throughout the address, he held the interest of the students by his informative, thought-provoking discourse on his philosophy of life. It was in no way sectarian in approach. It was quite apparent that _ he was at home in speaking to young men, and I have nothing but praise for a highly entertaining, educational, sound yet informal address.
The opportunity in Melbourne was followed by open doors
A i Navigator cgay shictt Rronded: inquirers with eee materials reported a 250 per cent rise in enrolment in instruction courses, chiefly of students.2"
Orr also ministered in the Universities of the eastern states, from Brisbane to Adelaide, under auspices of the conservative
Inter-Varsity Fellowship or the more liberal Student Christian Movement. One such series of meetings resulted in a third of | those attending notifying the secretary of the student organization in writing that they had made a clear-cut decision for Christ. Some of these meetings were small, others overflowing.
From Australia, Edwin Orr moved to India. While Bishop of Coimbatore, I had occasion to observe Edwin Orr's methods with students, and I reported at the time, in 1958:1°
After Dr. Edwin Orr's arrival, meetings were quickly arranged in four of the colleges at his request—the Government
Polytechnic, the Government Arts College, the P.S.G. Arts College, the Government College of Technology. More than
1,000 students in all attended these meetings. In view of the fact that many young people in India do not believe in God or religion because of the widespread communistic or secularistic influences of today, Dr. Orr's approach riveted the attention of his student audiences. He invited them to attend the later meetings in the Stadium to hear the gospel message and hundreds came.
So effective became Orr's ministry to students that he began to devote his time more and more to reaching the universities and colleges. He did not wish to lose contact with the churches.
He found also that student ministry was financially unremunerative to the point of hardship for his family dependents. So he hit upon a plan of combining ministry in colleges with ministry in the near-by churches that naturally showed interest in reaching their neighbours on campus.
Thus, in 1962, Orr was preaching in the Waco churches as well as conducting meetings in the oldest university in Texas,
Baylor University.
A programme was arranged by the Chancellor, Dr. W. R. White, who reported to International Christian
Leadership :*° K
ee _ He was was seeeived ee sale aed students. His appro ch was most effective. His messages were rich in content and 4 most stimulating to all. He met problems and difficulties facing students with intelligence and spiritual depth. He was perfectly at home in the academic atmosphere.
Dr. Orr strengthened the faith of many and stimulated the full commitment of many others. He presented the great verities in a most clarifying and convincing manner.
_ In 1963, Edwin Orr was lecturing in Eugene at the invitation of the University of Oregon and in Tempe at the invitation of the Arizona State University. An interdenominational student group at the University of Minnesota in Duluth received a much-prized official award from the University as a result of sponsoring a series of lectures in which Orr's ministry was eminently successful. As a result, Edwin Orr extended his Mission to the Academic Community under the auspices of International
Christian Leadership indefinitely.
To follow up the interest of the students in his popular apologetics, Edwin Orr made tape recordings of his most popular addresses, had them transcribed and edited into book form, entitling the production Faith That Makes Sense. It was published in Britain by Marshall, Morgan & Scott of London and in America by the Judson Press of Valley Forge, and translated into other languages immediately.