Book Review of The Fourfold Gospel by A.B. Simpson

(Originally posted to Amazon Nov 3, 2005)

Founder of the C&MA gives the Doctrinal Distinctives

This is the heart and core of the what The Christian and Missionary Alliance was founded upon doctrinally.

Jesus Christ as Savior – Salvation alone through Jesus Christ and his atoning work upon the cross.

Jesus Christ as Sanctifier - Sanctification as both a crisis and a process through a subsequent post-salvation experience of giving ones life completely over to Christ.

Jesus Christ as Healer – Physical Healing found within the atonement and available for the child of God to access today.

Jesus Christ as Coming King – A visible, imminent return of Christ, tied into the completion of His Great Commission.

Simpson saw his faith as a chariot riding upon these 4 wheels with equal importance to the body of Christ.

Today’s Alliance has seen 2 of these wheels diminish in size to where the Chariot wobbles quite a lot. Healing and Sanctification have diminished since the exodus of the early 20th century of many from the Alliance into the Assemblies of God. There has been a recoil within the Alliance from that which smacks too much of the Charismatic and with that, much of that initial balance and fervor that fueled the movement has become tepid.

Missions itself as a focus and emphasis remains and indeed that more than anything else holds the movement together. The growth overseas is strong. The growth at home is primarily in the intercultural churches. The home organization has sought for growth principals in the Fuller Church Growth Movement.

Perhaps Simpson still has something to say to the C&MA. This is a good place to start!

5 Stars

bart breen

Book Review of Wholly Sanctified by A.B. Simpson

A Classic and Important Work

AB Simpson was the founder of the The Christian and Missionary Alliance. He intended these to function as loosely allied organizations focusing on Foreign Missions on the one hand and a loosely held organization of independent Churches on the other.

Simpson himself was trained a Presbyterian Minister who later in life came in contact with the Holiness Movement (primarily the Keswick Movement although with Wesleyan influence as well) and he began an interesting conglomeration of his Calvinistic roots with the experience of the revival movement of that day.

In promoting the 4-Fold Gospel as he understood it, Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer and Coming King, Simpson put a strong emphasis upon the subsequent experience of Sanctification.

He, as did many of his day, saw Salvation as a distinct starting place but saw as well a subsequent crisis experience in which the believer came to terms with their need for complete surrender to the Holy Spirit. Other traditions have termed this, “The Baptism of the Holy Spirit.” That term today has come to be identified with the Charismatic movement and often to include the experience of tongues and so many movements which used the term and concept with ease and conviction prior to this have moved away from the terminology. Unfortunately, they have moved away from the teaching and promotion of the experience as well.

Unfortunately, in today’s C&MA, Sanctification as it was understood, experienced, preached and promoted by AB Simpson and the early Alliance is no longer given the emphasis it once was. Part of this may be a recoil to the exodus that took place in the early 20th century from the Alliance into what is now the Assemblies of God. With that exodus, the Alliance, while never overtly becoming anti-charismatic, has eschewed the terminology and experiences of its earlier heritage and has lost this theological distinctive or at least seen it diminish greatly.

Simpson himself was something of an enigma. He doesn’t always neatly reconcile his Calvinist theology with his revivalist experience. He is content in many ways to move with passion and trust to the fact that what he is living is working and tying into the power of the Holy Spirit without always exegeting why that is the case.

It is part of his appeal in some ways, and that passion attracts many to his preaching and leadership in the days of his ministry and from it cam a great Missionary movement.

This book is fundamental to understanding Simpson and the source of that power and success.

This reviewer loves the denomination that came forth from the Four-Fold Gospel and recognizes the need for there to be a renewal and return as such to the power that drove it. Unfortunately is not being pushed strongly from C&MA pulpits today.

This book is a wonderful place to start. It’s message is timeless and needed today.

5 stars

bart breen

Book Review of “To All Peoples: Missions World Book of the Christian and Missionary Alliance” by Robert Niklaus

Originally posted to Amazon.com on October 30, 2005

Beautifully Rendered History of C&MA Missions

Niklaus has with this work provided a sequel to his history of the C&MA, “All for Jesus.” While the former work gave a good explanation for the history of the movement and why foreign missions were emphasized, this book gives the details overseas and chronicles the growth of the mission fields themselves.

Despite the C&MA being a North American based denomination, the vast majority of growth has taken place overseas, Several of these planted national Churches have exceeded the size of the US Church and are functioning as their own Church and missions sending organizations. This is an amazing legacy and a clear model upon which to base missions efforts.

A great deal of this occurred because since before WWII the C&MA took the strategy of rejecting colonial evangelism and sought instead for the missionary to plant the church and then rather than directing it indefinitely to raise up indigent leadership and then step aside and allow the Church to form.

The fruits of this approach has been many countries closed to other missions movements, open to the Alliance because they do not threaten their culture or sense of independence. When war, famine or political upheaval have thrown missionaries out of countries, where other Churches have foundered without missionary presence and leadership, Alliance works have thrived because the missionary was just an outside consultant, not the key to the movement.

This book is rife with wonderful stories of faith and martyrdom. It presents a legacy that is amazing.

This work, more than any other, makes me proud to have been a part of the C&MA. Whatever other flaws there are, and they are there, the bottom line is that God has used the C&MA to reach many areas of the world and ours is a model that many other look to in hopes for the same success. That is a legacy and hope for the future. Whatever issues remain to work out, this type of impact is worth working to continue!

An important book for the C&MA but also one for evangelical Christendom to look to, to rejoice in and to emulate in outreach.

5 Stars

bart breen

Book Review of All For Jesus: God at Work in the Christian and Missionary Alliance Over One Hundred Years by Robert L. Niklaus

(Originally posted on Amazon October 30, 2005)

History of an Important Foreign Missions Movement and a Confused Denomination

All for Jesus, is an important defining piece for a movement that stretches back to the late 19th century.

The Christian and Missionary Alliance was never intended to be a denomination. A.B. Simpson made it very clear that he believed that the Kingdom did not need another denomination, what was needed was a cross-denominational movement that focused on Foreign Missions cooperatively. Around this movement grew many independent Churches who wanted some form of central organization.

The Missions Movement was the Missionary Alliance. The organization of Independent Churches was the Christian Alliance. They were intended to be separate and maintain the cross-denominational, almost inter-denominational flavor of the foreign missions movement.

Over time the C&MA did indeed become more and more of a denomination tied to an emphasis on foreign missions. Despite the fact that it began more and more to walk like a duck, quack like a duck and go remarkably well with orange sauce, the views of the founder remained woven in the hierarchy and so the duck was kept in the closet …. but newspapers were spread and corn meal slipped under the door regularly to keep the duck healthy.

The duck came out of its closet in the 1970′s. The C&MA was ready to admit what it was functioning as for years; namely a denomination. Any good denomination ought to have a history, and this book, All for Jesus was the result.

It is a good work with a very good narrative through the years of the wonderful accomplishments through the C&MA. Good pictures and illustrations will be found.

The C&MA often struggles compared to other denominations for a sense of identity. Typically that identity includes unique doctrinal emphasis or a specific focus or purpose organizationally.

Doctrinally, the distinctive of the C&MA is the four-fold Gospel or Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer and Coming King. Unfortunately the emphasis of Christ as Healer and Sanctifier has diminished greatly over the years and the 4-Legged table upon which the C&MA once rested has 2 short legs and wobbles quite a bit. This has been true since the 1930′s when a large exodus of C&MA people and Churches went over to the Assemblies of God. In recoil against that movement, the C&MA now claims to be neutral to that which smacks of the Charismatic. In practice, those elements of healing and sanctification that were part of the C&MA heritage are not really highly present anymore and to the extent that they are, they are a shadow of what they once were.

The C&MA has thrown in it’s lot to a great extent with the Church Growth movement out of Fuller Seminary and sought for growth without always clearly defining what their distinctives are.

All For Jesus helps to fill this vacuum with a very well laid out history of Missionary work and the spread of the denomination oversees which has all but eclipsed the growth of the mother church back in North America.

If the C&MA has any one predominant identifying factor, it is the emphasis on Foreign Missions.

This is an excellent work and worth reading for anyone associated with the C&MA or indeed just in the general evangelical community who wants to see and understand the roots of foreign missions.

The C&MA still remains at a crossroads as it continues to figure out who they are and where they are going. Knowing where they’ve been is essential to this process. I wish them well and I recommend this book as an excellent resource for many.

4 stars

bart breen

Book Review of The Gospel of Healing by A.B. Simpson

A.B. Simpson was the founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance. He was in many ways a study in contrasts. He was trained and raised a Scottish Presbyterian who was steeped in Calvinism. However, his own personal religious path, brought him in touch with the holiness movement of the later 19th century and he was very much influenced and attracted to the spiritual dynamism that was so different from his own more conservative tradition.

Simpson retained his theological training but branched out in the influence of what he say as a necessary enthusiasm and dynamic spiritual life. His training was often in conflict with his experience. Yet he seemed to be little concerned about that and to reach out and grasp that which in his experience and observation worked.

As a result, he became a leading spokesman for foreign missions and for the fourfold gospel. Key within the fourfold Gospel was the importance of healing. Simpson believed healing was in the atonement and thus the Christian should in faith reach out and receive. He rejected much of medicine opting instead for direct healing intervention from God. To this end he himself sought healing in camps and meetings organized for just that purpose.

Today’s C&MA and much of the evangelical church no longer holds to such an extreme line. This is evidenced within the C&MA where Simpson’s works on healing are no longer held in high regard as evidenced by their low circulation. If you want to see what the Alliance holds to today, you must go to the later work “The Children’s Bread” by Keith Bailey.

Of the original 4-Fold gospel, healing and sanctification receive considerable less attention than they did historically. Much of that change can be traced to the exodus in the early 20th century from the Alliance into what became the Assemblies of God. The Alliance is not stated anti-charismatic but in practice the gifts and the elements of healing embraced and evidenced in this book by Simpson are just not a viable and important part of most Alliance Churches.

There still remains a very strong appeal for the faith and experience of Simpson. This is an excellent work to study and see from whence the C&MA has come and where it is now. Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far and Simpson ironically has something more to say to his prodigal movement today.

Book Review of Divine Healing: The Children’s Bread by Keith M. Bailey

Keith Bailey has written a book here to effectively clarify and present in an organized fashion the position of healing espoused by the Christian & Missionary Alliance.

This was necessary for 2 reasons.

First, there was not really a systematic theology in this area present for the C&MA prior to this. George Pardington had some writing in this area but it was deemed not entirely sufficient.

Secondly, the C&MA has departed, if not in spirit from the earlier teachings and practices in this arena from the founder A.B. Simpson, then certainly from the emphasis of the earlier days. Therefore a statement was needed that more closely approximated the current practices. In the 30′s there was an exodus of about 1/4 of the membership and Churches from the C&MA over to the Assemblies of God. That history generated a recoil from those practices and teachings within the C&MA that smacked of the Charismatic. The Alliance does not disavow these teachings from the earlier days, but in practice they effectively de-emphasize them and so a different work was needed to provide a platform more in keeping with what the C&MA has morphed into since the 1930′s. With the establishment in the 1970′s as a formal denomination a book was needed to explain the current practice. This was what come out.

An enlightening and helpful work. It is usually used by Districts of the C&MA in the ordination process. It is valuable as well to elders with C&MA churches and reads well and is of value to the general Christian community.

To see where the Alliance moved from, read and compare with “The Gospel of Healing” by the founder A.B. Simpson. You’ll see a much stronger healing message there and have a better flavor for what the C&MA used to be.