By John Pollock
Christian Focus. 314 pages. £7.99
ISBN 1 85792 167 4
'Nothing can be more fatal to the discipline of the school (Eton), nothing more calculated to interfere with good regulation in the management of the boys.' Than what? What is so dangerous? Why, letting them hear the gospel, of course! Such was the opinion of the Marquess of Bath when it was proposed to allow Moody to visit Eton - a proposal, sneered the newspapers, '... discussed with as much heart as if it had threatened the peace of Europe!'
It is good to see this biography again; full of warm stories, Pollock is always immensely readable. Here, he shows us just how loveable a character was Moody; surely one of the most encouraging men in church history just because he was so ordinary!
I warmly commend this book - but it has limitations; Pollock just does not like, or understand, Calvinism. That comes out here and in his book on Whitefield too, in spite of the fact that certainly Whitefield, and perhaps Moody, too, were decidedly Calvinist. So Pollock speaks of 'the bleak, systematised high Calvinism of the Puritans' (p. 21) and also of 'this severe, chilling Calvinism' (p.123). (It really isn't true, Mr Pollock; my Calvinism keeps me warm!)
Then, too, Pollock is uncritical of the whole mass-evangelism approach. There is no discussion of Moody's belief that the results of his missions were due to faithful Bible teaching in the churches, and inadequate attention is given to any relationship between Moody's converts and the onslaught of liberalism a few years later. Important issues; but a good read nonetheless.
