Psychology and Evangelism

Professor C. A. Beckwith, D.D., Chicago

Psychology is not a new thing as applied to evangelism. All successful evangelists have been past masters in the psychological method of appealing to men and winning converts. Some, as Whitefield and Moody, have a natural insight into the workings of the human heart. Others, as Jonathan Edwards, are reflective students and bring their knowledge to bear on the most specific, difficult and unusual conditions. Whether or not Mr. Moody ever had a formal acquaintance with psychology, no one knew better than he how to find and describe the stages of sin and consciousness of conversion. He knew the heart, its motives, its weaknesses, its longings, its defeats, and he knew how to touch its secret springs all the way from laughter to tears and from sin to the consciousness of forgiveness. No more satisfying material is available for one who wishes to study the relation of psychology to evangelism than is provided in Mr. Moody’s sermons as, for example, those on Lot and Zacchaeus. In Jonathan Edwards’ “Treatise concerning Religious Affections,” one finds an almost perfect touch-stone for the tests of true conversion. No one else has ever written so thoroughly or with such subtle insight as he 1 See p. 25.

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in his investigation and description of the various types of Christian experience.

By “Evangelism” in this paper I mean that form of Christian activity which seeks to make the gospel effective in human life, especially in the initial stages of renewal. It may then assume three forms: (1) Endeavour after social renovation, aiming at a gradual change of existing social conditions or an immediate application of Christian agencies to human need; (2) Steady, prolonged, and continuous effort to persuade men to become Christians; (3) Definite, organized, and periodic attempts for the immediate conversion of men. In what follows I refer particularly to (2) and (3).

If psychology is not wholly new in respect to evangelism, it is new so far as it is now self-conscious and scientific. In looking around for opportunities to apply its interpretative suggestions, it has found in evangelism a promising field. On the other hand, evangelism, in inqumng how it may most effectually reach the individual and the community, has turned to psychology for its aid.

In this paper only three aspects of our subject are presented — its bearing on sin, on the conditions of evangelism in the crowd and the individual, and on conversion.

Psychology is of help to evangelism in the light which it throws on the nature of sin. It enables one to trace the genesis of sin in the individual and in the race, and thus to ascertain the present moral condition of the sinner. Psychology has discerned the truth in “original righteousness,” “original sin,” “depravity,” and “moral inability “. It helps to an understanding of the “flesh” and its relation to the “spirit “; it interprets the conflict which arises between these, and the nature of the responsibiUty which is connected with the surrender of the “spirit” to the “flesh “. It reveals the part played by social heredity in the formation of individual character. It shows how impulse, instinct, and desire are related to choice. It takes sin out of the field of theology and plants it in the field of experience. In the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, in the terms which are translated by “sin,” it rediscovers the deep and permanent meaning which experience has stamped upon it — missing the mark, error, folly, emptiness, wickedness, violence, rebellion, wrong, transgression, lawlessness. Psychology shows further that sin is — sins, concrete deeds as well as a spirit of life, acts as well as habits. It makes it clear also that sinful actions are not always perfectly bad, that many actions are done from mixed motives, and that there is at times a heart of good in things evil. Moreover, it helps us to see that the consciousness of sin is sometimes a feeling of unrest, due to the sense of defeat or imperfection, of social disharmony, of divine disapproval; at other times sin gathers up into itself the piercing cry, “Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned “.

n.

Psychology is of value in its description of the conditions which lead up to effective conversion. These centre in the crowd and in the individual. Kecently the “crowd” has been subjected to a thorough-going analysis; its fundamental notion has been defined, its mental characteristics described, and the laws upon which its suggestibility is conditioned have been formulated. It is evident, for example, that a revival is a form of impulsive social action and as such conforms to the law (1) of the origin of emotional states socially initiated, (2) of spread through imitation and geometrical progression, and (3) of restraint or diminution and final subsidence. In such a crowd, the reflective or critical faculty gives place to the receptive, there is a tendency to suggestibility and contagion, and to do things which if the individuals were alone and apart from the crowd no one of them would do. Psychology shows why the evangelistic appeal is through familiar beliefs and convictions, why its formulas are also familiar with little use of reasoned exposition, how it gives rise to unconscious illusions, what part fear plays in the emotional awakening, why the leadership is important, and what the forces are which determine social evangelism, as imagination, customary beliefs, emotion, mental contagion and suggestibility, and the personal influence of the evangelist. Through psychology also we are aware of the value of the concomitants of evangelism, such as the preparations for the meetings, the place of assembly, the opening services, predisposing personal conditions, the prestige of the evangelist, and the general assumptions on which the meetings are conducted. The meanings of every one of the foregoing facts and conditions have been more or less understood through all the history of the Church, and evangelists have observed many of the requirements referred to, but not until a comparatively recent period have we been in a position to appreciate the specific mental bearing of all this, and adapt ourselves to it in evangelism.

III.

Psychology has helped us to a truer interpretation of the nature of conversion. An experience which often appeared utterly mysterious or was referred exclusively to the will or power of God, is now seen to be to a great extent at least, if not entirely, explicable by known psychological processes. In this way several troublesome matters have been more or less cleared up.

1. Conversion has been studied inductively, with a view to ascertain what could be known about it as a human experience. For the time being the divine causal action was ignored and attention fixed on the human conditions and processes in which it takes place. Professors Starbuck and Coe were pioneers in this field, while to Professor William James is due our chief debt.

2. Discoveries made in the field of the sub-consciousness are found of the highest significance in elucidating the experience of conversion. Facts of the sub- conscious life derived from hypnotic and hysteric patients have provided material for accounting for many hitherto mysterious phenomena of religious conversion. We now know what kind of persons are the most likely subjects of an explosive form of this experience.

3. Sudden and violent conversions have been brought within the law of the human consciousness. Similar phenomena in the religious experience of the devotees of other religions have been studied and their results used to light up Christian conversion. Experiences also outside of the religious field explain the sudden emergence of emotional excitement in which in an instant the interest shifts and sets up a new and dominant direction of personal forces.

4. Psychology has shown that there are two main types of conversion — the volitional and the self-surrender — and we understand now what it is in the consciousness of each individual which predisposes him to one or other of these forms of experience. We now know why some conversions are the culmination of long striving for a better self, for higher ideals, for self-control in unity of will, for union with God, and we know why others are inwardly changed the very moment they leave off effort and relax, so that what they could not attain by the most strenuous endeavour becomes their sudden possession. We know too why it is that bitter opposition subsides and one finds himself at peace in accepting, just as a moment before he was at war in resisting, the gospel.

5. Psychology has made it possible for us to understand the conditions which often accompany such conversions, some of which are more distinctly psychical, as the instantaneous reinforcement of the will, the peace after storm, the new light in which even the natural world appears, others of which are more definitely physical and are concerned with bodily disturbances, such as visions, auditions, shakings, and loss of muscular control. Professor Davenport in “Primitive Traits in Religious Kevivals” has introduced us to a very large number of such experiences at different periods and in widely separated regions of the world. Such instances are susceptible of indefinite extension not only in Christian but also in non-Christian lands.

6. Psychology enables us to distinguish more accurately the essential from the non-essential elements in conversion. All that Jonathan Edwards has so subtly and exhaustively described in his ‘’Narrative of Surprising Conversions,” and his “Religious Affections” is still further sharpened and made convincing by the aid of a more thorough psychological analysis. The fact of a sudden or a gradually realized conversion is entirely indifferent. Emotion or the lack of it, the physical condition at the time, and even unusual accompaniments of the new attitude are also indifferent. Persons may experience a doctrine or a suggested experience of a given type, and still not have begun the new life. One and one thing only is necessary — the beginning of that type of life which Jesus Christ lived, His attitude toward God, His attitude toward men. Not all who enter upon this life believe the same things or are conscious of the same ideals, or give expression to the life in the same terms of conduct. If this new spirit now becomes “the hot place in a man’s consciousness,... the habitual centre of his personal energy,” -psjchology pronounces him a Christian.

INDEX

Abraham, 263.

Active powers, 192, 214.

Adams, Professor, 96.

Aflfection, family, 56.

Alexander, A. B. D., 63.

America, 20.

American Christianity, 21;
preaching, 21.

Amiel, 131, 155.

Anatomy, 39.

Aquinas, Thomas, 236, 247.

Argyle, Duke of, 180.

Aristotle, 148, 150, 191.

Arnold’s “Attention and Interest,” 96.

Arnold, Matthew, 32, 35.

Arrol, Sir William, 178.

Association of Ideas, 148, 150.

Attention, 93, 96, 97, 98.

Augustine, St., 108, 120, 121,
236.

Bacon, Lord, 192.

Bain, Professor, 196.

Baldwin, J. M., 148.

Barbour, Dr. G. F., 32.

Beauty, test of, 223.

Beck, Professor, 18.

Beckwith, Professor C. A., 25,
269.

Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward, 21.

Begbie, Harold, 23.

Bible, 19, 47.

Body, 41, 47, 49, 61; sins of, 53,
59.

Boia, Professor Henri, 24.

Brain, 69, 82, 107, 193; substance, 81.

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Browne, Sir Thomas, 267.
Brussau, Oskar, 258.
Burns, Robert, 137, 209.
Bush, Wendell T., 30.

Calderwood, Professor, 247.

Calkins’ “Science of Selves,” 28.

Carlyle, Thomas, 158.

Categories, 176.

Character, 163; formation of,
154.

Choice, 225; permanent, 228.

Christian, definition of, 138.

Christianity, 141, 210; problem
of, 161.

Chrysostom, 236.

Coe, Professor, 273.

Cognitive powers, 191.

Columbus, 136.

Commonsense, 171, 178.

Conduct, 191, 215.

Conscience, 58, 64, 71, 116, 202,
222, 226, 235; implies existence of God, 250; and religious
faculty, 250; in Old Testament,
236; in New Testament, 236;
sequent, 240, 243, 249; antecedent, 243, 248, 249; Kant
and, 239; Rousseau and, 239;
Butler and, 239; Martineau
and, 239; Green and, 239;
Shakspeare and, 241; in “Las
Miserables,” 241; Luther’s definition of, 237; Calvin’s definition of, 238; Schoberlein’s
definition of, 237; English
Deism and, 238; Protestantism
and, 238.

Consciousness, 111; of self, 115.
Conversion, ^20, 22, 26; two main

types of, 273.
Cook, Rev. Joseph, 240.
Culture, gospel of, 32; mental,
Dale, Dr., 24.

Dante, 143.

Davenport, Professor, 274.

Day-dreams, 130.

Decision, 225.

Delitzsch, Professor, 18.

Desire, 71, 219.

Determination, 225.

Determinism, doctrine of, 163.

Dickson, Professor, 49.

Dorner, Professor, 258.

Drama, 133.

Dreaming, 128.

Drummond, Professor Henry, 28,

138.
Drunkenness, 51, 52.

Ear, the, 80; the external, 77;

the internal, 78; the drum of,

78.
Edison, 136.
Edwards, Jonathan, 20, 208, 269,

274.
Eliot, George, 32.
Emerson, 32.
Emotion, 71, 194.
Epic, 133.

Eucken, Professor, 22.
Evangelism, three forms of, 270.
Excitement, religious, 21.
Experience, 81; religious, 23, 24.
Eye, 79, 80.

Feeling, 70, 71, 191, 193, 217.

Feelings, division of, 195, 196,
197; the lowest and highest,
202; the three master-feelings,
206; education of, 200.

Fichte, 32, 35.

Fletcher’s, “Psychology of the
New Testament,” 18.

Forgiveness, 117.
Frank, Professor von, 24.

Gass, Dr. W., 236.

Gibbon, 142.

Glover, William, 40.

Gluttony, 51.

God, 117, 118; the Fatherhood
of, 29; voice of, 90; Word of,
183; kingdom of, 35, 141; the
reason of the universe, 186.

Goethe, 35.

Good, conformity to the, 224.

Gratitude, 117.

Guilt, 115.

“Habit,” the word, 162.

Habit, 147; formation of, 151;
strengthened by repetition,
151; mind seat of, 153; body
in its service, 153; good, may
become tyrannical, 155; evil,
easily acquired, 159; evil, tyranny of, 160; rules for breaking-off, 161.

Hamilton, Sir William, 37, 38,
110.

Hamlet, 167, 226.

Harris, Professor Fraser, 201.

Hearing, sense of, 77.

“Heart,” in Old Testament, 18
64; in New Testament, 64.

Heart, 191, 194; “new,” 65.

Heredity, 99.

Herzog, 24.

Hobbes, 204.

Hope, an instrument of salvation,
140; and immortality, 142;
modern form of, 142.

Humanity, 59.

Hume, David, 148.

Idealism, modern, 74.

Ideas, Association of, 148, 150;

succession of, 148.
Ihmels, 24.
Illingworth, J. R., 27.

Imagination, 42, 71, 125;
‘* creative,” 127; principal
function of, 132, 135; highest
service of, 139; dangers of,
134; and hope, 139.

Immortality, 30.

Impressions, stream of, 86, 96,
99; power of, 94, 112.

Impulses, 71.

Individuality, definition of, 33.

Industry, 56, 57.

Intellect, 37.

Intellectual powers, 213.

Interest, 95, 96.

Introspection, 73.

Isaac, 263.

Iverach, Principal, 108.

Jacob, 263.

James, Professor William, 22, 23,

38, 86, 147, 161, 214, 273.
Jesuit Moralists, 237.
John, St., 187.
Johnson, Dr., 136.
Judgment, Day of, 248.

Kant, 244; Doctrine of the

Categories, 176.
Knowledge, 71, 81, 90, 191, 215;

five gateways of, 74.
Kostlin, 24.

Labour, gospel of, 158.
Ladd, Professor, 81, 93, 105.
Laidlaw, Professor, 32, 60.
Land or, Walter Savage, 201.
‘’ Life,” term, 27; definition of,

28.
Livingstone, David, 136, 266.
Logic, aim of science, 179;

ancient, 73.
“Lost,” meaning of term, 28.
Love, 58.
Lust, 51, 52.
Luthardt, 236.
Luther, Martin, 237, 266.

Macbeth, 241.

McCosh, President, 37, 38, 195.

McDougall’s “Physiological Psychology, “84, 194.

MacEwen, Sir William, 88.

McHardy, Dr., 36.

Man, 39, 40, 43, 49, 50, 154;
Bible view of, 48; “of the
world,” 55; “old,” 65, 252;
“new,” 65, 252; on physical
side 74

Materialism, 106, 107.

Matter, 83, 85.

Memory, 42, 71, 92, 104, 110,
114, 115; two powers of, 104;
“good,” 112; Mother of the
Muses, 115; and imagination,
126.

“Might,” in Old Testament, 18.

Milton, 143.

Mind, 87, 88, 127, 167; materialistic theory of, 107; and habit, 153; knowledge of by the ancients, 72.

Momerie, 27.

Moody, D. L., 269.

Mystics, 237, 251.

Nature, human, 34, 47, 48, 60;

perfection of, 252.
Nerves, system of, 69, 70, 74, 79;

sensory, 192, 216, 218; motor,

192, 216, 218.
Netoliczka, O., 33.
Newton, 174.
Niebergall, 34.
Nietzsche, 38, 203.
Novel, 133.

Omission, sins of, 116.
Origen, 236.

Parable of Prodigal Son, 140,

226.
Patriotism, 198.
Paul, St., 18, 19, 92, 98, 205,

209, 230, 266; his conception

of the Church, 267.
Perception, 71, 92.

Personality, 27, 28; definition
of, 33.

Peter, St., 36, 138.

Philanthropy, 56.

Philosophy, Scottish School of,
37; mechanical, 194.

Physiology, 40, 214; Ancients’
notion of, 72.

Plato, 92, 120, 148, 150, 260.

Plotinus, 115.

Prayer, habit of, 159.

Protestant worship, 185.

Protestantism, 139.

“Psyche,” 35.

Psychology, 36, 39, 42, 70, 71,
213, 215, 219; English school
of, 148; and conversion, 26,
271, 272; and Evangelism,
269; and sin, 269; purpose of,
18; of Religion, 20, 21. 25,
26; Biblical, 17, 19, 24, 25, 26,
47; Pauline, 64, 253; Christian, definition of, 26, 29, 39,
47; of sanctification, 26; of
evangelization, 26.

Rationalism, 207.

Reason, 58, 92, 167, 222; work
of, 167; creative power, 168;
cultivation of, 177; religious
use of, 181; has to do with
means to ends, 171; has to do
with cause and effect, 172;
faculty of comparison, 169.

Reasoning, 71.

Recollection, 104, 108, 126.

Reformation, 184.

Religion, 39, 137, 206.

Resolution, 225.

Retention, 104, 105, 108.

Reverie, 129, 130.

Revival, definition of, 271.

Richard III., 241.

Romanism, 139.

Salvation, definition of, 29.
Scaliger, 113.
Schleiermacher, 208, 261.

Schmidt, 240.

Schoberlein, 237.

Scott, Sir Walter, 106, 245.

Seeing, sense of, 77.

“Self,” meaning of the, 27.

Self, the subconscious, 108.

Self-control, 157, 220.

Sensation, 71; pure, 90.

Senses, the five, 69, 74, 81; of
animals, 75.

Sentiments, 71.

Seth, Professor, 37.

Shakspeare, 225, 257-

Shand, Alexander F., 258.

Sin, 147, 182.

Smell, sense of, 76.

Socrates, 260.

“Soul,” in Old Testament, 18;
in New Testament, 27; term
of Jesus, 29, 30, 39.

Soul, the, 40, 41, 42, 47, 51, 54,
64, 74; Bible use of, 54.

Spencer, Herbert, 86.

Spirit, 47, 51, 58; the work of,
59; supremacy of, 61.

Spots, temperature, 76; pressure, 76.

Starbuck, E. D., 22, 23, 223.

Stearns, Professor, 228.

Steven, Dr. G., 24.

Strong, T. B., 207.

Sympathy, 198.

Tact, 177.

Taste, sense of, 76.

Taylor, Jeremy, 238.

Taylor, Dr. W. M., 98.

Temperament, the sanguine, 259,
260; the phlegmatic, 259, 260,
the choleric, 259, 261; the
melancholic, 260, 261.

“Temperament,” the word, 258.

Temperaments, the four, 257.

Temperaments, the temptations
of, 262, 264; special virtues of,
265; mixed, 261; national, 261.

Temple, on Personality, 27.

Tennyson, Lord, 92, 240.

Theology, Biblical, 17, 18.
Thomson, Professor Hanna, 73,

89.
Thought, concentration of, 157.
Touch, sense of, 75, 76.
Trent, Council of, 117.
Truth, test of, 223.
Tyndall, Professor, 86, 136.

Unconsciousness, 126.
Universe, 175.

ViNET, 37.
Volition, 71.

Ward, Professor, 94.

Wellington, Duke of, 154,

Wendt, 49.

Wesleys, the, 208.

Whitefield, George, 269.

Whyte, Principal, 155, 258.

Will, 71, 93, 202, 213; freedom
of, 220; power of, 228;
“good,” 225.

Wilson’s ^’ Gateways of Knowledge,” 81.

Wisdom literature, 182.

Wobbermin, 20.

Woman, the ‘worldly,” 56.

Work and wages, 158.

Youth, 198.

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