North Dakota Revivalism-End of the Story

In recent weeks, I posted a couple of posts related to a July 1930 editorial that discussed an upcoming Billy Sunday meeting in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The author of this editorial, W. P. Davies, opposed such revivals based upon the city's experience with an evangelist by the name of Hunt, who raised funds for a tar-paper "tabernacle" and then proceeded to spread rumors about many prominent members of Grand Forks society. 

While those posts referred to an editorial from July 1, 1930, Davies clarified his position on July 3 in the Grand Forks Herald.  He started his article by stating, "Those who read the article in this column relating to the so-called evangelist Hunt may have gained the impression that I did not and do not admire Mr. Hunt.  That impression is quite correct."  The editorialist then went on to explain his reasoning in this follow-up article.

He mentioned that Hunt was able to amass a very large children's choir for the occasion of his meetings.  In fact, the choir number about 300 and Davies remembered how well they could sing.  However, it seems that Hunt changed the words of familiar hymn tunes and then inserted parodies of leading members of Grand Forks society for the children to sing.  Apparently, Davies also had a problem with the way Hunt used "coarse suggestiveness" to bring the "vileness of the saloon and bawdy house" to bear in his sermons.  The story of Hunt and Grand Forks ended after several people dropped a lawsuit against the evangelist to claim the tar-papered tabernacle.  In these two articles, it does not appear that Davies opposed Christianity or religion in general, just certain self-promoting preachers like Mr. Hunt.

Unfortunately, from a quick search of the digital archive, it appears that Davies did not disclose his opinion of the Billy Sunday event.  The acceptance (or non-acceptance) of Sunday, as well as other opinions on Hunt's meetings from contemporaries, could be a great avenue of future study to better gauge the attitude of this town on the Northern Great Plains toward revivalism in the early twentieth century.  Some who study evangelicalism argue that this type of revivalism was very important in leading to the "revival" (pun somewhat intended) of the fundamentalist movement in the late 1940s.

North Dakota Revivalism--More of the Story

In a post earlier this week, I mentioned that Billy Sunday prepared to visit North Dakota in 1930.  While many considered evangelistic meetings such as this with a great deal of excitement and anticipation, others cringed.  One such individual was W. P. Davies, as I mentioned in the previous post that I linked above.  Davies, an editorialist for the Grand Forks Herald castigated Sunday's use of business technique in his meetings and also his "acrobatics" that tended to arouse emotionalism.

Some contemporary evangelicals may wonder why Davies and others of his opinion viewed revivals with suspicion.  Davies gave his reasons for this suspicion.  Grand Forks had only had one such evangelistic meeting before 1930, held by a minister by the name of Hunt.  Several of the local Protestant churches supported him and encouraged the local community to do likewise.  According to Davies' account, the first few meetings went well, moving from church to church, but then Hunt stood up in the Methodist Church and complained about having to move about and asked for donations to build a tabernacle. 

Hunt obtained enough for a quickly-built (by volunteer carpenters) tabernacle of rough wood covered by tar paper, and then went about hinting at scandals he was going to expose and at times apparently mentioned the names or at least insinuated in an obvious way just about every major figure in town.  This activity worried the businessmen who promoted the meetings, but in the words of Davies, Hunt told them "to go to blazes" because the tabernacle was his, not theirs.  He never did tell the scandalous details (perhaps he knew of none and just wanted to draw a bigger crowd), and left shortly thereafter.  One of the local ministers, according to Davies' account, said in relation to Hunt and his campaign, "I thought we had that man sized up right, but we hadn't.  This is my first experience of this kind, and it is my last.  Never again for me!" 

North Dakota Revivalism--Billy Sunday's Coming to Town

North Dakota a hotbed of revivalism?  Not exactly, and I wasn't really even looking to find out anything about revivalism in Grand Forks.  A few days ago, while looking at the website for the Chester Fritz Library, I came across their digital collections.  For those who may be unfamiliar with digital history, it involves the digitizing of historical documents and photographs.  Some digital history sites are free, while others require subscriptions to access the documents.  One of the links on the digital history section of the library takes investigators to several W. P. Davies newspaper articles from 1930-1944 for the Grand Forks Herald.  I thought I'd give it a shot and look up infor on the church that I've been studying in my research.

I clicked the search button, and low and behold, 16 documents appeared.  The first one did not mention my search parameter, but it did lead me to an interesting article published on July 1, 1930, on an upcoming revival to be held by Billy Sunday.  Revivals have long proved controversial in Christian circles, with those experiencing them believing them a spectacular moving of the Holy Spirit and those against them believing revivals nothing but an expression of unbridled "enthusiasm" or "emotionalism."  This dichotomy of opinion was quite evident during the Great Awakening with Jonathan Edwards hailed alternately as either a great leader of a great revival or a great leader of a great enthusiasm. 

To be fair, the author of the article, Mr. Davies did not appear to be against all revivalism.  He conceded that revivals such as those held by Moody and Sankey, "while marked by deep emotionalism, were conducted with earnestness and every evidence of sincerity."  Then came Billy Sunday.  Davies did not much care for the "acrobatics" that Sunday often exhibited during his sermons.  Nor did Davies appreciate Sunday's use of "the methods of big business" in conducting his meetings. 

While this editorial made it evident that Davies was no fan of such revivals, it becomes apparent after reading another editorial a short time later that there was a reason for his opinion of Sunday and his methods.  That story will be left for another installment.