Instead of the Nation of Islam, I decided to visit another Chicago religious landmark this morning – the Moody Church. Founded in the late 1800s by a traveling shoe salesman-turned-preacher, the nondenominational Christian church has a membership of thousands, and reached many more with the nearby Moody Bible Institute.
An evangelist, Moody came to Chicago just before the Civil War, where he joined a Congregationalist church and started the largest Sunday school of his time. What he is most known for, however, is reaching out to the downtrodden and outcast communities in the immigrant and laboring neighborhoods of Chicago. In fact, the Moody Church sits in an area once known for sailors and vagabonds, but now one of Chicago’s richest areas.
Moody was tireless in his evangelism, traveling the country and much of the world trying to spread the gospel, and was extremely successful, especially in his use of the “Wordless Book,” a pictographic representation of the gospel to bridge the gap when language was not an option.
Unlike many influential preachers who came before him, like Jonathan Edwards of Northampton, which I discussed here, Moody was premillenial. Edwards, a figurehead of postmillenialism, believed that expansive American religious revivals were one of the ways in which God was realizing the Golden Age on Earth prior to the return of Jesus. Postmillennialism teaches that contemporary human creation of Christ’s kingdom will defeat the forces of Satan.
Moody, however, disagreed. He taught that Christ’s kingdom is yet to come, and the current age is only a precursor. largely under the influence of the Brethren movement, disagreed. In his view, Christ will appear and radically alter the world in its current form, defeating Satan and culling the sinful from the masses. Here’s a quote from Moody which helps illuminate this view:
“I have felt like working three times as hard ever since I came to understand that my Lord was coming back again. I look on this world as a wrecked vessel. God has given me a life-boat and said to me, ‘Moody, save as many as you can.’ “
The church, which is able to seat almost 4,000 people, regularly draws up to 2,000 people to its two Sunday services. Today, I chose to go to the morning service, as there are tours of the church regularly offered afterwards. It’s a good thing I did, too, as everything else at the Moody Church was canceled for their annual picnic. So I never got the tour, which means I can’t tell you about the Tiffany chandeliers or the Romanesque arches. But you can see them here:
A big part of Moody’s mission to save who he can was repeated today by Pastor Erwin Lutzer, the church’s current leader. He began the service with adult baptisms, where new converts to Christianity expressed their devotion and were dipped in a large pool high in the wall high above the congregation:
One of the most moving stories was a secretary who had been given a Bible to throw away just two months ago. “I just couldn’t bring myself to do it,” she said, even though she didn’t believe in its contents. So it sat on her night stand for weeks, until she picked it up and couldn’t put it down. And now she’s in front of thousands, professing her newfound faith.
This desire for conversion then continued in his sermon on spiritual warfare, which was full of fire and brimstone. He portrayed Satan as an active participant in worldly events, trying to trick and turn people from righteousness, and divided the world into two camps – Christians and non-Christians. “Those who do not accept the love of Christ are on the side of the Devil,” he said with conviction.
A prolific writer, Lutzer has come out with dozens of books to inspire and convert to his brand of staunchly conservative Christianity, with ominous titles like “Hitler’s Cross” and “Slandering Jesus,” and “One Minute After You Die: A Preview of Your Final Destination.”
But the service ended with something that truly spoke to me – the story of the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul.” This hymn, known to many Christian denominations in many countries, is perhaps one of the most beautiful songs ever, as it comes from a contemporary Job, Horatio Spafford.
Spafford wrote this in 1873, after everything awful that could have happened to him came to pass. First, his son died, soon followed by the Chicago Fire which ruined him financially. Picking up the pieces, he purchased a trip to Eurpoe for him, his wife, and his four daughters. Delayed, he sent them on the steam boat ahead of him. The ship collided with another, and all four daughters drowned. Spafford then penned this song, before beginning a life of serving the poor in Jerusalem. Here is one of the more beautiful verses, quite applicable to the Devil-battling sermon:
“Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blessed assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.”
Anyhow, after the service I headed over to the picnic in Lincoln Park, the immense green space that buffers Chicago from Lake Michigan. I gorged myself on hot dogs, brownies, and grapes, and chatted with a charming medical student from Northwestern, Amy Brown, about faith and politics. We had a lot in common – like being able to laugh when everyone’s ears noticeably pricked up when certain buzzwords, like “Obama” left our tongues.
