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51 British Assemblies of God: The War Years William K. Kay * Prelude to War Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Franco assumed dictatorial power in Europe during the 1930s. Stalin was the only left wing dictator in this group, but his methods and nationalism made him similar to his right wing counterparts. It did not require great perspicuity to realise that Europe would be fortunate to escape an armed conflict. Yet many people within British society hoped they would never have to face the crisis of conscience caused by open war. First of all there were pacifists in Britain who were led, among others, by the Anglican Dick Sheppard whose own revulsion against war stemmed directly from his experience.-as a chaplain in the trenches in 1914-18. Whereas popular and government opinion in the First World War had very little time for conscientious objection, the situation by 1939 had changed and paci- fism was seen as an acceptable form of Christian witness. Pentecostals, as we shall see, were often conscientious objectors, but they did not, like Sheppard, extend their objections into the political arena and there is no record of their approving of the policy of appeasement by which the British Government initially attempted to satisfy Hitler’s territorial ambitions. British politics during the 1930s also contained socialist and fascist elements, the one supporting Moscow and the other Berlin. The British Union of Fascists never attracted more than 20,000 members and had little or no political influenced The politics of the left were more clear- ly articulated and publicised by the Left Book Club which managed to sell a monthly selection of books to its 60,000 members, many of whom were school teachers.2 Pentecostals did not concern themselves with political or economic matters and so their analysis of trends in Europe was biblical. A regu- lar column by C. H. E. Duncombe entitled “Watchman, What of the Night?” in Redemption Tidings, the Assemblies of God’s own maga- zine, fitted public events into a prophetic scheme. How widely this scheme was held, and how fervently it was believed, is difficult at this . *William K. Kay serves as a Lecturer at Mattersey Hallv (an Assemblies of God Bible College), Mattersey, NR Doncaster, England A. J. P. (1985) English History 1914-1945, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 462. ITaylor 2Taylor A. J. P. (1985) English History 1914-1945, Harmondsworth: 488. Penguin, 1 52 distance in time to ascertain. Some of the column’s comments strike the modem reader as silly, others are realistic and yet others are mistaken without being completely wide of the mark. For example the use of Micah 7:14 “they lick the dust like a serpent” to show that everyone will fall flat on the ground during an air raid is absurd. By contrast comments on the Nazis’ fundamentally anti-Christian charac- ter-which were gleaned from magazine sources but republished in Redemption Tidings-are accurate and all the more sharp when one remembers that senior British politicians (with the honourable excep- tion of Churchill) were prepared to flatter and negotiate with Hitler before 1939. Writers in Redemption Tidings had to strike a balance between being alarmist and being pastoral. It did not help Pentecostal readers to be told that they were about to enter a final and desperate phase of perse- cution brought on by the mechanics of the Great Tribulation. Occa- sionally Duncombe spoke of civilisation being swept “irresistibly toward the terrific maelstrom of Armageddon”3 or, in another article, of “harbingers of tribulation”.4 He seemed almost to revel in the onset of disaster, stating that “throughout 1938 the army of the Godless has marched on” and “the deep gloom of earth’s darkest night is already upon us”S but, if he did so, it was only because he saw disaster as a necessary precondition to the Second Coming of Christ and the rapture. Common sense told the British public that left wing Russia and right wing Germany were natural enemies and that, if one fought the other, Britain might safely be able to maintain an armed neutrality. When, in 1939, the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact was signed, a shudder inevitably went down the spines of European democracies. Hitler had secured his most vulnerable border so as to allow himself a free hand elsewhere. Duncombe immediately saw this pact as a fulfillment of Ezekiel 38 and 39 “this fulfillment of prophecy, the coming together of Gomer and Gog, resulting as it has from such a complete and unexpected reversal of Russian foreign policy, is nothing short of uncanny”.6 3Redemption Tidings January 13, 1939. 4Redemption Tidings January 27, 1939. 5Redemption Tidings January 13, 1939. 6Redemption Tidings September 8, 1939. We should note that The Elim Evangel, the official journal of the Elim Pente costal churches, was faced with a similar choice between alarmism and pastoral con cern. An editorial January 6, 1939 says, “We have just a year o national anxiety, and world affairs still present a cause for much passed concern. through We do no know what 1939 may bring forth. Events are marching on to the great climax por trayed in the Word of God. ” A ‘little while’ and we may hear the heavenly summons t ‘arise and come away’.” This is a rather delicate way of saying that the rapture may take place soon ant 2 53 What we do not find in Redemption Tidings is any reference to the manifestation of relevant prophetic gifts in pentecostal churches. There is no indication that, as in the case of Paul’s planned visit to Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit in every city warned of an impending trial (Acts 20:23 and 21:11). That no such warnings were given is to be expected in the light of Assemblies of God’s basic teaching on the function of pro- phecy. was part of the understanding which both Donald Gee and Howard Carter had It of prophecy that it should be for “exhortation, edification and comfort” (1 Cor 14:3) and that the practice of expecting prophecy to solve personal (or national) problems was to be avoided. Prophecy was, therefore, never given a function which was directive or specifically predictive and, in the normal course of church life, prophe- cies were expected to supplement the preaching ministry of the pastor, and it was in practice quite possible for congregations to proceed with- out noticing the absence of prophetic gifts.7 The only exception to this, and it is a partial exception, is to be found in the famous appearance of the face of a suffering lamb on the wall of the church in Llanelly in July 1914 during a meeting where Stephen Jeffreys was preaching. At the time the vision was not understood, but later it was interpreted as signalling the prescient sorrow of Christ at the vast casualty lists of the First World War. So far as the 1939-45 war was concerned, there seems to have been no charismatic intimation of the horrors which were to come.8 We can, of course, explain this lack in four ways: either divine sovereignty decided that such a warning was unneces- sary ; or the gift of prophecy is not intended to forewarn; or prophecy is intended to forewarn but the British Assemblies of God failed to appreciate this; or such warnings were to individuals but never communicated to the church as a whole g. given the implication is that Christians should not worry unduly. 70ne of the reasons for bringing the Assemblies of God into existence in the 1920s was to regularise teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The idea that was intended to prophecy provide answers to of God personal leaders on the problems-a sort of Christian horoscope-was attacked by Assemblies grounds that the New Testament shows no indication that this was the way that prophecy was understood the by church. Howard early Carter’s view of prophecy is outlined in Questions And Answers on the London: Evangel Press, 1946. In this book Carter explained how he considered the gifts of revelation to relate to the gift of prophecy. Although his Gifts of the Spirit, position was subtle and does leave room for revelation of various kinds it is through prophecy, apparent that his main understanding of prophecy was according to 1 Corinthians 14:3. Gee is similar. 8Donald Gee The Pentecostal Movement, 101. 9Tom Woods, a British Assemblies of God minister, (born approximately 1904) told me (in September 1985) that God had said to him at the start of the war, the word that Hitler would never invade An article by P. N. Corry in England. The Elim Evangel (May 12, 1939) under the title “I was There!” recounts, “I was staying in Amsterdam towards the end of 1912… during 3 54 War When war was declared, practical advice and biblical teaching was offered by Assemblies of’God leaders. Many of them had been bom in the 1890s and had lived as conscientious objectors through the 1914- 18 war. Howard Carter had been imprisoned for refusing to fight and Donald Gee had been required to work on the land in farming. Both men had found the ostracism which their views engendered difficult to bear. Gee understood only too well how the villagers in the place where he worked must have thought of him as a coward and their bitterness against him, and those like him, only increased when fathers and sons were killed in the trenches. Because of the nationwide pacifist movement in the 1930s, and also because from 1924 onwards Assemblies of God was a recognised denomination whose pacifist stance was written into its doctrinal statements, public feeling against Pentecostals was less in the World War II than World War I. Moreover, despite the line taken by the Assemblies of God leadership against wearing uniform and bearing arms, considerable numbers of young men and women in pentecostal congregations did volunteer or accept conscription. The advice of Assemblies of God leadership, clear though it was, always pointed out that the decision to fight or not was a matter of individual conscience, and so pastors supported their young people either at the tribunals where conscientious objection was settled or at the recruiting offices where military service began. When men in uniform returned on leave to their home churches, they were certainly not shunned or criticised. And there is no record of any congregations which split or left the Assemblies of God on the matter of whether it was right or wrong to fight for king and country. The Assemblies of God leadership provided advice for its members about how to cope with the war situation. Respect for the State ac- cording to Romans 13 was inculcated; suggestions about the holding of meetings to avoid travelling in the blackout were made; Christians were told to be circumspect and unprovocative in their contact with that time of prayer the power of God fell on Mrs P and she said, ‘My people, do not be deceived by the peace of the world nor by this for from the embers of this fire a spark shall go out which peace, shall set the world aflame.’ In prophetic vision she described the fire spreading from the Balkans to Russian, Germany … for over three hours the prophecy continued”. No similar instance was published about the 1939-45 war. In general the Elim than did magazine took a more varied approach to the prospect of war Redemption Tidings. George Jeffreys spoke on prophetic themes in public meetings, but he always ended by speaking of the return of Christ and individual by inviting tion of repentance. An article by David Cooper advised caution in the biblical and interpreta- of prophecy pointed out that the wild and dogmatic interpretations prophecy which had occurred during the First World War had proved to be misplaced. 4 55 unbelievers; and there was an attempt to answer the theological ques- tion about why God allowed the war to take place. This answer made no reference to prophetic schemes but instead pointed out that divine intervention in human history had already occurred in the life and ministry of Jesus and that, if God intervened again, it would be on his terms and that these terms would entail the renunciation of evil. A second article offered a different set of thoughts: whereas human beings wanted to be rescued from suffering and misery, God wanted them to be delivered from sin and far. 10 Neither of these articles was entirely satisfactory, but they did at least avoid facile apocalyptic utterances and false hope. As the war developed, social changes in Britain took place which affected the churches. By and large the Assemblies of God comprised the less well-off members of society and it was this section of society which began to benefit financially by the war. By contrast with the wealthier sections of society, the wages of the ordinary working man and skilled artisan increased by about 18% during the years 1938-47.11 I There -were, at any rat, no luxury goods to buy and so the living standards between rich and poor narrowed and, in addition, the effect of working in the armed forces was to reduce the class divisions which had stratified and bedevilled English society in the previous two decades. The social distance between different groups within Britain was narrowed and, furthermore, the economic distance between them was partly bridged by the fact that there was very little point in saving money. Certainly the congregations in Assemblies of God gave gener- ously. What was the point, after all, in saving up for a holiday which one could not take or trying to scrape money together for expensive furniture which was no longer available in the shops? British congregations in the Assemblies of God continued to give money to missionary work overseas during the war. This giving was stimulated by the presence in Britain of missionaries who had been evacuated from war zones and who, instead of working in Belgium or France or similar occupied countries,. itinerated the home assemblies. Moreover, as a breakdown of the figures in the immediate post-war period showed, much missionary expenditure was on travel to and from Britain and on the fitting out of new missionaries. Since these costs were not bome in the war period itself, all the money raised was either sent to the fields or used to support missionary families tem- porarily confined to base. Several new assemblies were pioneered by missionaries at home who proved rather more adept at the job than the existing pastors. In fact several of the pastors, particularly those on the south and south eastern coast of Britain, found themselves in extreme 10Redemption Tidings February 9, 1940 and January 16, 1942. 1 1A. J. P. Taylor (1985) English History 1914-1945, (Harmondsworth: Penguin), 623. 5 56 difficulty at the start of the war because men went off to fight and children were sent away to rural areas on the western side of the coun- troops the British Pentecostal “on entering the words and smiles”. that the try where they were less likely to be injured by bombing. As a result several congregations in Kent, for example, almost had to close down and their pastors had little chance of touring around the assemblies to make a living because missionaries were already doing this. A Dis- tressed Presbyter’s Fund was started, but it dwindled after about a year as churches switched their giving to a new scheme to evangelise the near the largest army camps. We have a glimpse of typical Pentecostal congregations during the war in a letter from a Canadian soldier which was printed in Redemp- tion Tidings (January 2, 1942). The letter is intended to compliment churches for their friendliness, church we are greeted with warm handshakes, kind But his description of the meeting implies all too clearly service is formal and lacking in spiritual power. There is no mention of and the hymn singing is interspersed with the reading of verses aloud, a practice which can be extremely tedious and only acceptable by virtue of its encouragement At the beginning the service the pastor and his wife and the.elders file onto the platform. At the end the pastor is stationed at the door to shake everyone’s hands. Redemption Tidings (Aug 28, 1942) also printed a second set of any charismatic manifestation gational participation. strangers strangers fellowship. The conferences leading figures preached to congre- of comments in the context of an editorial. A British soldier complained of the unattractive and shoddy exteriors of some Pentecostal halls, of the perfunctory greeting he received and the general sense he had that several members of the church seemed to regard the presence of as an intrusion to their own private gathering. John Carter, in his editorial, drew attention to the way some churches prayed at rather than for them. Bad Pentecostal churches, like bad churches of any kind, were unwelcoming, insensitive, suspicious and spiritually lukewarm. Yet there was another and brighter side to the coin. There was gen- eral agreement that the yearly war-time ministerial conferences were occasions for considerable mutual encouragement and comradely lasted about a week and were usually hosted by one of the large Assemblies of God churches. Each evening and they were able to address the ministers on the basis of a shared experience of the national emergency. After the war it was common to invite preachers from abroad, but in the war years this was not possible and, even had it been possible, it would probably not have been desirable. The conferences also devoted time to intercessory prayer when charismatic sense of the reality of God swept over the assembled crowd. As a result of the unity expressed in the spiritual sessions of the was covered without rancour or general conferences, the business agenda gifts flowered and when a 6 57 dissension. Indeed, Executive Council certificates annually to itinerant conscription. The withdrawal of a there was another reason why this was so. The of British Assemblies of God issued ministerial objection of ensuring recognised pastors, from conscription, record of any public seems likely Having the Executive Council surface in the 1950s dictatorial and impetuous-even, minsters entitling them to avoid ministerial certificate would, there- developed. There is no difficult minister, but it twice before wholesale from the fore, have had the consequence of forcing the man or woman in ques- tion to go before the tribunals to defend his or her conscientious in person. The Executive Council thus had a useful method that wayward preachers behaved themselves. Very early in the war the Government asked Assemblies of God to provide a list of one for each assembly. Each of these pastors was also exempt and it was from this list that the modem system of ministerial recognition threat to a particularly that possible rebels would have thought embarking on a contentious course of action, and the matter is hinted at in relevant Executive Minutes. Certainly it is hard to find any record of a minister who left the Assemblies of God in the war period in order to join another denomination. 12 said this, it is true that disputes could and did arise between and District Councils of the Assemblies of God. Districts were in no danger of being expelled Assemblies of God and so the augumentative tendency which was to and 60s confined itself to matters of local disci- pline. Briefly what happened was this. A church received as its pastor an older man who had been on the mission field. According to a large number of church members the pastor’s treatment of his flock was on one occasion, resulting in a threat of police action against a church officer. When the matter was investi- gated by the District, the behaviour of the church members was but when the Executive investigated, they sided with the the pastor. Subsequently the congrega- tion split and the Executive recognised the new congregational off- shoot. Both Howard Carter and Donald Gee were involved from the Executive side in this dispute and their handling of it, with hindsight, appears far more sensible than that of the local district. What is signifi- cant is that the Executive Council were prepared to provide leadership when faced by difficult situations. Before the war Carter and Gee had the country for long periods, them the departure of Carter-leadership condemned; majority of the church against been out of variety of reasons-among was less decisive. 13 and after the war, for a 12I am grateful to David Powell (born June 1909) for this information (in a phone call on August 3 1989). It was, in fact, Powell who proposed the ministerial list as a means of identifying Assemblies of God ministers. Until that time evangelists, missionaries and pastors had all been treated slightly differently. 13Howard Carter (born in 1891) left his position as Principal of the Hampstead 7 58 Gee’s son, David, was a pastor in Kent during the war. His widow’s account of her life reveals the odds against which local pastors fought. 14 He attempted with some success to build up a Sunday School (not all children were evacuated for the whole war) but much of his time was spent in pastoral visitation, particularly after bombing raids, to see whether all his people were unharmed. After one raid he had to help dig a member of his church out of a collapsed building: she was dead when they found her. Gee’s congregation was mainly female though in mining or ship building areas skilled men would be in- structed by the Government to remain in their occupations rather than join the armed forces. Prayer meetings continued to be an important part of church life although travel restrictions and the lack of street lighting hindered attendance. Occasional pastors combined their duties with community service, as when Eddie Durham became an air raid warden.15 Donald Gee’s sermon notes have survived and, because he made a habit of writing down precise details of where he preached each mes- sage, it is possible not only to reconstruct his war time itinerary crises- crossing Britain but also to see what teaching he deemed appropri- ate.16 One of the themes he dwelt upon was that of the glorified Christ, a message which lifted the thoughts and attention of his listeners to a peaceful and heavenly realm. He does not seem to have spent much time on eschatological themes. As the war drew to a close both Gee and Tom Woods looked back on their experiences and paid moving tribute to the Christian fellowship they had enjoyed. Woods wrote,”we are essentially a people with a burning passion for the Saviour, and I rejoice as I journey here and there and catch the fragrance of consecrated men and women who have left all to follow the Master…I salute my esteemed brethren who have paid the price to maintain the spirit of fellowship amongst us…society is better for this blessed bought-bought fellowship.” (Redemption Tidings 24 March 1944).17 – Bible College in the summer of 1948. Thereafter he held no office in the Assemblies of God, apart from a brief spell as a lecturer at the college during the years of his brother’s principalship. Howard preferred to move from church to church doing Bible he did have about a year as a pastor of an assembly in New Zealand. teaching, though 14I interviewed Mrs Gee, Donald’s daughter-in-law and David’s widow, on May 30, 1987 at her home near Portsmouth. David had died several years before in late middle age. 15This information comes from Vernon Ralphs who lectures at Mattersey Hall. 16these are in the possession of Jean Wildrianne and were lent to me. l7Redemption Tidings March 24, 1944; Gee’s comment is given in 1945. Redemption Tidings August 8
