6 

MOODY’S SOCIAL ACTION 

Learning from His Failures 

 

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

—ROMANS 3:21–24

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.

—ROMANS 8:20–23

Dwight Moody was a remarkable human whom God used in profound ways. It would be easy to present a two-dimensional Moody as a towering hero of the faith or alternately as a person so tainted his work should be dismissed. However, neither would be valid or fair. Moody was a human, and he, like all humans, was flawed. Even he would describe himself as merely a sinner saved by grace. As such, we should expect to find both the impact of God’s grace and signs of sinfulness in his life.

In this chapter, we explore one of Moody’s flaws, specifically, his handling of racial issues. From our vantage point today, Moody’s responses are both perplexing and complicated. Taken as a whole, they show both strengths and weaknesses. While providing insight into Moody’s theological commitments, these events also demonstrate that a stalwart person can flinch in the face of pressure.

Some may object that it is not necessary or even appropriate to criticize a man like Moody. However, Christians are to be truth tellers. The Scriptures themselves present humans as both marvelous and flawed. While many elements of Mr. Moody’s life are laudable, he is also flawed. It would be less than honest to ignore his flaws.

Scripture records the full truth about Bible characters we regard as heroes: Abraham passed off Sarah as his sister, Moses murdered a man, Jacob deceived his father, David committed adultery (if not rape) and murdered to cover it up. Thomas doubted; Peter denied Jesus, and was later rebuked by Paul because of his attitude toward Gentiles; Paul wrote off Mark; and Lot, whom Peter declared “righteous” in 2 Peter 2, offered his daughters to the men of Sodom. This theme continues throughout church history. Admirable figures like Augustine, Peter Abelard, Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, and Billy Sunday (to name a few) are found wanting after close investigation.

Mr. Moody was committed to the Bible. He believed the Scriptures should frame one’s understanding of their life and world. He urged his followers to be so saturated with the Bible that it would be reflected in all areas of their existence. Consequently, it seems appropriate to consider the texts at the start of this chapter as the framework to evaluate Moody’s life: Romans 3:21–24 and Romans 8:20–21. These Scriptures teach us that sin is insidious and pervasive. It affects every individual, culture, institution, and the entire created order—it corrupts, destroys, and brings death.

Moody believed Christ paid for our sins with His blood. He believed Jesus defeated death when He rose from the dead. He believed Jesus promised to free His creation from its bondage to corruption. However, while the ultimate end of sin and death is guaranteed, it is not yet fully seen. So, Moody lived in that hope, confident of the final victory of Christ. In this life, Moody maintained that we see signs of both the power of sin and the power of God. Consequently, human lives, cultures, societies, and institutions testify to both the continuing strength of sin and the sovereign power of God.

Moody was shaped by his era, and in some ways transcended his world. If judged by the standards of the time, Moody’s approach to race was quite progressive in some ways and quite conforming in others. But our role as truth tellers pushes us to dive more deeply into these accounts. We must look past “the standards of the time” and instead compare his actions to the expectations of the Bible. The purpose of this chapter is not to discredit Moody. Instead, it shows that his life displayed what he believed in and proclaimed. Specifically, all human beings come up short when examined in light of the commands of the Bible.

Finally, our honest reckoning of Moody’s life is consistent with one of his noted character qualities, his essential humility. Throughout his career, Moody was adamant about making sure he was not the focus of his work. He refused to attach his name to any of the institutions he founded, though others did this after he died. “Moody’s willingness to receive criticism and to confess faults revealed genuine greatness of soul,” a coworker said after his death.¹

Dwight Moody was obsessed with a focus on Jesus and the gospel. Jesus was his brand. Consequently, constructing a two-dimensional portrait of a perfect Moody would hardly fit with his desire to keep the focus off him. With these provisos in place, let us turn to Moody and his approach to racial issues.

MOODY’S RACIAL COOPERATION 

When Dwight Moody preached to Northern audiences, they reflected his admirable passion for reaching all people. In 1893, a reporter at the World’s Columbian Exposition gave this account of his sermons: “Side by side stood rough men and fashionably dressed ladies, negroes and working women and gentlemen, all anxiously pressing forward.”² And as was noted, Moody aggressively recruited students from diverse backgrounds—men, women, many ethnic groups, and especially immigrants—something unusual for his era. His schools were never segregated racially.

He sometimes used African Americans in his revival work. For example, during his first campaign in the United Kingdom, Moody partnered with the Fisk Jubilee Singers, an all-black choir from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. First used at Edinburgh in 1874, the choir traveled on and off with Moody for the rest of his tour, concluding with extended appearances in London.

Moody met the choir in Newcastle when they attended one of his meetings. As he described it, “There were about three million of that race just coming out of the state of slavery, and the Jubilee Singers were traveling through Christendom, and laboring hard to collect funds, to lift up their brethren from the depths of ignorance in which they lived.” When someone suggested that Moody include them in his meetings, he questioned their spiritual commitment, saying, “I suppose they are just merely public singers.” However, upon learning of their Christian faith, he became an immediate supporter and invited their participation in the meetings. It was an unusual move that met some initial resistance. However, Moody continued to include the choir, and soon the naysayers were won over.³

Moody demonstrated his appreciation of their ministry by calling on them again during the London phase of his 1875 campaign. As a Fisk University historian described it, shortly after the choir arrived in London, Moody contacted them and bid them to sing that afternoon as part of his London meetings. The choir responded by “temporarily turning from their concerts to help win souls. The company secured quarters in London and labored with Moody for a month singing to approximately 10,000 to 12,000 people daily.”⁴ After the London campaign, Moody and the Fisk singers continued their busy schedules, which apparently did not intersect again during his lifetime.⁵

MOODY’S ENCOUNTERS WITH SEGREGATION 

After returning to America, Moody made an unplanned trip to Augusta, Georgia, in 1875. This trip demonstrated the limits of his commitment to integration. Moody’s foray into the American South was novel. Although the earlier revivalist of the First Great Awakening, George Whitefield, had worked extensively in the South, the champion of the Second Great Awakening, Charles Finney, never ventured into the Southern states and was never confronted with the issue of segregated meetings. By going to Georgia, Moody would run headlong into this controversy. These meetings would put Moody to the test.

When Moody arrived in Georgia, he was astonished that the meetings were segregated. Earlier that same year, the congregation at one of his New York meetings had been described as “a mixed assemblage of all classes; some very poor, a few not very clean. Many black faces dot the congregation.”⁶

His initial response to what he saw in Georgia was moral indignation. Moody declared that some Southern whites “might possibly be astonished some day to see these blacks marching into the kingdom of heaven while they themselves were shut out.”⁷ The response from the white community in the South was swift and ferocious. “If Moody has come south for the purpose of endeavoring to change the relation of the black and white races,” a news reporter wrote, he would face the “contempt and abhorrence of our entire people.”⁸

One of Moody’s close friends and traveling companions, Major Daniel W. Whittle, intervened at this point. Whittle understood Moody’s anger. However, Whittle told Moody that if they insisted on integrating the meetings, the white population of Georgia would not attend. Whittle defended the segregated plan in his diary, writing that “not to have done it would have kept the white people away.” Whittle believed there was “no way we could carry on the meetings” without acquiescing to the segregated plan.⁹ In the end, Moody followed Whittle’s advice.

After the 1876 controversy in Augusta, Moody did not plan any extended campaigns in the South for several years. In 1885, he held campaigns in Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, DC, both of which garnered significant criticism, discussed below. In 1886, Moody held fifteen campaigns in Southern states, all of which had segregated seating or separate services for blacks and whites.¹⁰ In later years he returned to the South and continued segregated meetings, some as late as 1894 in Richmond, Virginia.¹¹

However, it was clear Moody was not comfortable with his decision and tried to hold separate meetings for blacks in the South. In the 1880s, he offered to go to Louisville, Kentucky, for a series of meetings designed exclusively for blacks. He seemed to be searching for a way to reach blacks in the South while maintaining a white audience.¹²

Moody’s segregated meetings are both puzzling and troubling. As noted in chapter 4, he was a committed abolitionist and an avid supporter of the Union. As a young man, he listened to the influential abolitionist speeches of William Lloyd Garrison, Elijah P. Lovejoy, and Wendell Philips. While in Boston, he was involved in the antislavery demonstrations at Faneuil Hall. Moody hated slavery; he saw it as a sin against God. As he put it, “Nations are only collections of individuals, and what is true of the part in regard to character is always true in regard to the whole. In this country our forefathers planted slavery and an open bible together, and didn’t we have to reap? Didn’t God make this nation weep in the hour of gathering the harvest, when we had to give up our young men, both North and South, to death, and every household almost had an empty chair, and blood, blood, blood, flowed like water for four long years? Ah, our nation sowed, and in tears and groans she had to reap!”¹³

Later the New York Times would report Moody objected to the application of the term “heathen” to the people of Asia. Mr. Moody stated, “America has far more sins to answer for than have China, and India is in accordance with the facts. It is only in this generation we have succeeded in abolishing slavery, more inhuman than any institution known in ‘heathen’ lands.” He continued by claiming “the legislation of our country is vulgar and cynical” and a “violation of the first principles of the ethics of Christianity.” The paper stated, “Mr. Moody’s influence will advance the improvement in manners as well as the morals of professed Christians.”¹⁴

By the 1890s, Moody could no longer accept the Southern segregated meetings. At a series of meetings in Texas in 1895, Moody began defying Jim Crow laws and segregation. On entering the site of the planned revival, Moody became enraged when he saw a fence designed to separate blacks from whites. He was so angry that he tried physically to tear the rail down. Although the rail withstood this initial assault, workers had torn it down by the time of the meetings.¹⁵

From this point on, Moody’s meetings in public venues were likely integrated. The historical record is not always clear—contemporary accounts do not always give exact details of the seating for his citywide conventions. Later in his ministry, Moody was more willing to visit several churches in the same city, rather than speaking in a large public hall. In such cases where Moody was invited to speak to both black and white congregations, it is difficult to draw direct conclusions.¹⁶ Whenever the practice stopped, the damage had been done.

AFRICAN AMERICAN RESPONSES 

In addition to violating his conscience, Moody’s segregated meetings had a long-term impact. Outraged by Moody’s decision to segregate the meetings in Georgia, one black pastor declared that he would not allow Moody to preach in a barroom, let alone a church.¹⁷ Ida B. Wells commented, “I remember very clearly that when Mr. Moody had come to the South with his revival sermons the notices printed said that the Negroes who wished to attend his meetings would have to go into the gallery or that a special service would be set aside for colored people only.”¹⁸ Wells found this to be despicable, but after attending meetings, she also expressed admiration for Moody: “His style is so simple, plain and natural that he does not preach a faraway God—a hard to be reconciled Saviour,” she said, adding that he proclaimed “the simple truth that Christ Jesus came on earth to seek & save that which was lost. Mr. Sankey’s singing is a sermon in itself.”¹⁹

Perhaps the most prominent African American of the era, Frederick Douglass, issued stinging criticism during a Moody visit to Philadelphia. “Of all the forms of negro hate in this world,” Douglas proclaimed, “save me from that one which clothes itself with the name of the loving Jesus.” To Douglass, the hypocrisy of Moody’s revivals was galling: “The negro can go into the circus, the theatre, and can be admitted to the lectures of Mr. Ingersoll, but he cannot go into an evangelical Christian meeting.”²⁰

The heaviest criticism came from African American pastor Francis Grimké, a cofounder of the NAACP whose theology and ministry philosophy was close to Moody’s. At one point Grimké expressed glowing admiration for Moody, describing him as “a soulwinner. He was ever looking out for opportunities to point men to Jesus, the Lamb of God, whose blood cleanses from all sin. That was his business; he had no other, lived for no other purpose. And hence the tremendous work which he did, and the wonderful success which attended his efforts.”²¹

Then came Moody’s fifteen-city Southern tour, with a stop in Jacksonville, Florida, where Grimké pastored a church. As was Moody’s practice during this time, the meetings were segregated.²² A few days earlier, the local newspaper had thanked Moody for avoiding “the extremists, the cranks, and those who delight in strife” who wanted “no distinction between blacks and whites at his meetings.²³ Moody had excused segregated seating by saying, “No, I will not touch the race issue. Let the local committees deal with it, so far as my meetings are concerned, as they may think best. They know more about it than I do, and doubtless will avoid the mistakes that I would be liable to make.”²⁴ The editorial blamed Northern “agitators,” claiming the problem was “not one that can be settled in a day or a year … it can only be settled by time—that is, it will eventually work out its own settlement.”²⁵

But Francis Grimké believed the issue had been settled by emancipation—which didn’t call for a waiting period. He wrote “Mr. Moody and the Color Question in the South” for the New York Independent, delivering a withering critique of Moody:

This discrimination against the Negro was not at all necessary to the success of his meetings. So great is his reputation as an evangelist, that his appearance would have secured crowds of willing listeners anywhere. There would not have been the slightest difficulty in securing a mixed audience of both races. No amount of blackness and ignorance would have been sufficient to have kept the white people away from these meetings.²⁶

Grimké pointed out that many whites had attended Jacksonville’s “blacks only” meetings and had enjoyed the experience, further proving that the policy wasn’t necessary. He further asked if Moody, “occupying the position that he does, as an ambassador of Christ, had a right to hide behind a local committee and become a nonentity in the presence of this great evil.”²⁷ He viewed Moody with “mingled feelings of pity and disgust,” and suggested that “perhaps in the future Mr. Moody may learn that God is no respecter of persons; that of one blood he has made all races of men; that Christ died for all alike, and that the soul of the Negro is as precious in his sight as that of the white man.”²⁸

Returning home after the Southern tour, Moody also received criticism from the New York Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. One conference delegate called for the assembly to condemn the conduct of Mr. Moody.

I would not have “Evangelist” Moody preach in a barroom of mine if I owned it, much less in a church. His conduct in his Southern tour has been shameful towards the negroes of the South, and in Charleston, when I was there, he positively refused to allow representation in his evangelical meetings from among the colored churches of the city, placing caste above Christianity and his patented system of salvation, by which the whites could be saved and the blacks lost, above the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, which offers salvation to every sinner.²⁹

Another delegate asserted, “We are more cordially received in haunts of vice than in the alleged temples of Christ. Mr. Moody shows his narrow nature by his appeal to caste in the South, and dragged his meetings to the level of a circus, in which he plays the clown.”³⁰

During the AME meetings, a representative from the Northfield Conference rose to defend Moody—only to be shouted down by the delegates. “He was made to learn that he had mistaken the body of men he was talking to,” the Christian Reporter said. “They were not the men to be hoodwinked to hide Mr. Moody’s prejudice.”³¹

Moody also received criticism from African American newspapers such as the Washington Bee. The paper’s characterization of Moody’s work is telling. “White people have a separate religion. Moody and Sankey might be serving God, but no Negro need apply. It was a white man’s meeting.”³² A month later it covered an address by C. H. J. Taylor, a black newspaper editor and former ambassador to Liberia. “Whatever wrong the colored people suffered and whatever sores they have, the Church alone can relieve. Since God has no preference, His children should show none in their treatment of one another.” Taylor directly blamed “Moody and Sankey, Sam Jones and Sam Small and all of their ilk for their conduct toward the Negro.”³³

On the other hand, some blacks were more circumspect with their comments. For example, Booker T. Washington spoke at the 1895 Northfield conference and considered Moody a friend. Moody in turn promoted the Tuskegee Institute and encouraged support from Northern donors.³⁴ A month later, Moody was in Atlanta when Washington delivered an address at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition. By this point, Washington was attracting his own criticism from younger blacks who felt he was too accommodating—they dubbed his speech “The Atlanta Compromise,” and the name stuck.³⁵ Later, when Moody was near death, Washington sent a warm note to Emma Moody, thanking him for work that “benefited people of all races.”³⁶

A letter from pastor L. H. Smith of an AME church in Savannah, Georgia, began, “We, the Negroes of Savannah, thank you more than language can express … for the services you gave us at our churches.” The letter describes the “good and lasting results of your brotherly and divinely directed labors among us.” Smith commented that the local paper, the Morning News, had done well when it described Moody’s work among the Negroes during the Civil War. However, it would have done “itself, the South, the Colored people, yourself and the Master a lasting service had it reported your service with us, some of the many good things you said to us.” The letter concluded with Smith noting he and another pastor had collected $15.03 to support Moody’s effort to place literature in prisons and poorhouses.³⁷ While Moody had critics among the black churches in the South, he also had some supporters.

RESPONSE TO LYNCHING 

While the controversy over segregated meetings continued, Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute began documenting a significant tragedy—the alarming rise in lynching attacks of African Americans.³⁸ By this point the Southern states had all passed legislation to codify Jim Crow practices and disenfranchise black voters. When lynchings reached their peak in 1892, white religious leaders were oddly silent.

“The attitude of the Anglo-American pulpit in relation to Southern outrages is one of the most discouraging features of the so-called Negro problem,” Francis Grimké said in another article for the Independent.³⁹ He noted how white preachers were more than willing to denounce sins such as the liquor traffic, gambling, Sabbath desecration, and polygamy in Utah. “But not even a whisper has been heard on Southern outrages.”⁴⁰

In the same way, Ida B. Wells was particularly vociferous in her criticism:

“There was no movement being made by American white Christians toward aiding public sentiment against lynch law in the United States.” Moreover, “Not only was this true, but the actions and utterances of certain well-known Christian workers had served to give encouragement to the practices of the southern states of America toward the Negro.” “I mention,” she says, “both the Rev. Dwight L. Moody and Miss Frances E. Willard in this country.” ⁴¹

On another occasion, Wells reported her conversations with believers in the United Kingdom. When she explained that most Christians in the United States remained silent in the face of segregation and lynching, she was asked about Moody and Francis Willard. They assumed these two had indeed spoken up. Wells went on to say,

My answer to these queries was that neither of those great exponents of Christianity in our country had ever spoken out in condemnation of lynching but seemed, on the contrary, disposed to overlook that fashionable pastime of the South.

Whatever the cause, no Negroes had ever heard of Rev. Moody’s refusal to accept these Jim Crow arrangements or knew of any protest of his against lynchings.⁴²

In fact, Moody did address lynching shortly before his death. Specifically, in 1899 just months before his death, Moody identifies lynching as a sign of the sinfulness of America.⁴³

THE LASTING EFFECTS OF SILENCE 

Moody’s tolerance of segregation and prolonged silence on lynching would lead to long-term consequences shaping the country and extending racism in America. While this was not Moody’s intent, there is evidence to support this claim. As early as 1893, Francis Grimké had been predicting the lasting effects. Noting the potential influence of white clergy, a group comprising more than 75,000 nationally, Grimké asked why they remained silent on racism. “If these seventy-five thousand men had done their duty, had taken the pains to set clearly before their people their duty in this matter in view of the requirements of God’s Word and the principles of justice and right, which require us to render to every man his due, to do by others as we would be done by and to love our neighbor as ourselves, the outlook for the Negro would be very much more promising than it is today.”⁴⁴

Edward J. Blum’s Reforging the White Republic (2005) argued that Moody’s message was instrumental in rebuilding the White Republic by emphasizing reconciliation among Northern and Southern whites at the expense of African Americans. During Reconstruction, abolitionists in the North had a golden opportunity to pursue true racial justice and permanent reform in America. Why did the moment slip away, leaving many whites more racist than before? As Grimké had suggested a century earlier, Blum charges Moody with promoting white religious unity by keeping quiet in the face of racial prejudice.⁴⁵

I believe Blum is correct in his assertion concerning the role of religion following the Civil War. The Civil War was, in many ways, a religious war.⁴⁶ It is easier to understand the war’s immense carnage by looking at religious dynamics on both sides, a primary motivating factor for soldiers—as well as the women and children away from the battlefield.⁴⁷

“The United States in 1860 was not uniquely religious,” Mark Noll observes, “but it was nonetheless, and by almost any standard of comparison, a remarkably religious society.”⁴⁸ Noll cites statistics from 1860, when between a third and two-fifths of Americans were formal members of churches. Further, the rate of adherence (people who regularly participated in church life) was probably double the rate of membership. “Religion was then much more important than any other center of value at work in the country,” Noll concludes.⁴⁹

During this era the church faced much less competition in its attempts to shape society’s hearts and minds. Imagine a world free of cellphones, televisions, computers, and social media. The preacher during the Civil War era never faced the onslaught of voices today’s preachers face contending for the minds and hearts of their congregations.

Consequently, it is necessary to remind the modern reader of religion’s role in nineteenth-century America. Although the country had experienced waves of immigration that heightened the influence of Roman Catholicism and Judaism, it remained predominantly Protestant.⁵⁰ Indeed, in his work “Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America,” historian Richard Carwardine noted that about 40 percent of the population identified with evangelical Protestantism and thus was the “largest, and most formidable, subculture in American society.”⁵¹

Considering these realities, two ideas significantly influenced most Americans’ minds. First, the Bible played a decisive role for many in forming private and public morality. Second, there was an overarching belief that America had a special relationship with God and had a unique position in human history. Antebellum debates about the institution of slavery raged within this framework, and it helps us better understand the increasing ferocity of the exchanges.

Because of the populace’s broad regard for the Bible, the decades leading up to the Civil War featured preachers in both the North and South constantly appealing to scriptural texts to support their beliefs. Thousands of sermons proclaimed with absolute certainty the righteousness of both positions while denouncing the other side. Two examples show the contrast.

Robert Lewis Dabney, a Southern Presbyterian and slavery advocate, believed that “we must go before the nation with the Bible as the text, and ‘Thus saith the Lord’ as the answer … then the whole body of sincere believers at the North will have to array themselves, though unwillingly, on our side. They will prefer the Bible to abolitionism.”⁵²

Jonathan Blanchard, the first president of Wheaton College and an ardent abolitionist, believed the Bible taught the opposite: “Abolitionists take their stand upon the New Testament doctrine of the natural equity of man. The one-bloodism of humankind, and upon those great principles of human rights, drawn from the New Testament, and announced in the American Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men have natural and inalienable rights.”⁵³

Overarching both of these views was an assumption, shared in the North and the South, that America had a unique relationship with God. There was a shared sense that this country had a special role in God’s economy. We were an exemplar to the rest of the world, the chosen of God to demonstrate actual Christian society. As a result, any deviation from the laws of God would bring God’s wrath to bear on the land.

Lincoln’s second inaugural address described the two sides this way:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged…. The Almighty has His own purposes…. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?⁵⁴

Given the power of religion in the Civil War era, the Grimké and Blum argument is compelling. Protestant churches were in a position to forcefully address issues of race after the war. As Mark Noll notes, “The evangelical Protestant traditions that had done so much to shape society before the war did possess the theological resources to address both America’s deeply ingrained racism and its burgeoning industrial revolution.” He contends the Civil War essentially “took the steam out of Protestants’ moral energy.” Thus, the Protestant Church remained “divided, North and South” and “even more divided along racial lines.”⁵⁵

Moody cast a long shadow over Protestant Christianity in the United States and the United Kingdom. He was in a position to challenge segregation. Because of his prominence, Moody’s decision to tolerate segregation made a significant statement. The numerous complaints made by contemporaries, particularly African American Protestant evangelicals, are echoed by historians who argue that Moody’s determination played a role in perpetuating discrimination. Moody’s silence had a devastating effect on African Americans. While this was not Moody’s intent, it never-theless is troubling and must be acknowledged.

ANTISEMITISM AND JEWISH STEREOTYPES 

The story of Moody’s relationship with the Jewish people is also one of contradictions. On the one hand, Moody reinforced the stereotypes of the day. In one of his published sermons, he stated, “You know a Jew must have a very poor opinion of a man if he will not do business with him when there is a prospect of making something out of him.”⁵⁶ On the other hand, Moody spoke against prejudice against the Jewish people. Commenting on the notorious Dreyfus Trial in France, Moody remarked, “I pity the man or a nation that allows prejudice to enter the heart against God’s chosen people.”⁵⁷

One troubling episode comes from Moody’s work at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. Moody had invited pastors and evangelists from nearly every European country to speak to various immigrant groups at the fair, including Adolf Stoecker (1835–1909).⁵⁸ A Lutheran theologian and a former court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm II, Adolf Stoecker was also well-known for his antisemitic rhetoric. Two days before Stoecker preached, the Chicago Tribune published a biographical essay noting that “his anti-Semitic speeches made him world renowned. He claimed that the Jews were clannish and that they formed a state within a state. He advocated laws disbarring Jews from official positions, such as lawyers, judges, and officers in the army.”⁵⁹

A day later, speaking to reporters through an interpreter, Stoecker did not deny the accusations, but “emphasized the fact that he had come to Chicago to preach the gospel and not attack the Jews.”⁶⁰

Moody rejected the published accusations and gave Stoecker a glowing introduction: “We give you a warm welcome. God bless you. We don’t believe the newspapers. We believe in the Bible. We have confidence in you. We love you.”⁶¹ In a later Stoecker meeting, Moody pointed out another platform guest, Rabbi Joseph Rabinowicz, a convert to Christianity who led a Christian synagogue in Kishinef, Russia. Moody evidently believed that if a rabbi was not offended by Stoecker, other Jews should not be either.⁶²

Moody apparently did not bother to check the accusations against Stoecker. Perhaps Moody believed in good faith that Stoecker was innocent and that the allegations against him were part of a campaign to undermine the German preacher’s work. He saw him as a fellow evangelist who was doing in Germany the same kind of work as he was doing in America and therefore trusted him. Jews viewed the matter differently. For them, Moody’s welcome to Stoecker meant an endorsement, and they developed a suspicious and contemptuous attitude toward Moody. Moody was a man with a passion for the gospel and his desire to see all people saved, including those of the Jewish people. However, many Jews associated Moody with missionary enterprises attempting their conversion. For them, such attempts were insults to their religious heritage and a threat to Jewish survival.⁶³

This comment by Yaakov Ariel probably best summarizes Moody: “[His] attitudes toward the Jews were marked by ambivalence which reflected both deep-rooted prejudices against them as well as appreciation and hope for that people’s glorious future. While Moody’s prejudices were influenced by his cultural background, his hopes for the Jewish People resulted from his premillennialist eschatological belief.”⁶⁴

EVALUATION FROM SCRIPTURE 

Moody’s response was consistent with his commitment to evangelism. As we have seen, Moody believed conversion was the ultimate remedy for social ills. Though he did not express this in so many words, it seems reasonable to assume he felt the same way about racism. His goal was to ensure the presentation of the gospel to the largest number of people. If that meant tolerating segregated meetings for a period, then Moody was prepared to deal with that distasteful reality.

Regardless, Moody’s decisions on these questions fall far short of the expectations laid out in Scripture. While it may be argued Moody reflected his times, we will not be judged on those standards. As Paul enjoined in Romans 12:2, we are not to conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It seems apparent that while Moody was not personally a racist, he chose at times to conform to the pattern of this world’s racial ideology. I would like to suggest three plausible explanations for Moody’s failure.

Moody believed in the gospel’s ability to transform humans. The New Testament testifies to the power of human prejudice. In Acts 6:1 and 2, tensions arise in the early church about the unequal treatment of widows based on ethnicity. Galatians 2 records Paul confronting Peter about not eating with Gentiles. Sadly, bigotry in the church was hardly new. In addition to the biblical accounts, Moody had plenty of personal experiences to show that some Christians remained bigots. Further, it seems theologically naïve to believe conversion would immediately eradicate the sin of bigotry in all believers. Moody knew the way people of opposing viewpoints used the Bible leading up to the Civil War.

Moody believed in the power of the gospel to heal all wounds. Earlier we noted Protestant churches split before the country split.⁶⁵ It is conceivable Moody reasoned that if religion played such a critical role in causing the war, it must play a crucial role in healing the wounds. Consequently, he engaged in “ends justify means” reasoning, believing that an acquiescence to the Southern attitude on race would produce massive conversions among whites and lead to the dismantling of segregation. However, as we noted above, this seems naïve.

Moody’s childhood included significant trauma. Moody lost his father as a little boy. Not only was the death shocking to the child, but it also pushed the family into poverty. Moody was forced to live with other families to help make ends meet. Education was a luxury the family could hardly afford, and Moody would bemoan his lack of education throughout his life. It is not hard to imagine the insecurities and abandonment issues these events would create within the maturing Moody.

What is clear is that throughout Mr. Moody’s life, there is a consistent pattern of conflict avoidance.⁶⁶ It is not insignificant that his approach to racial concerns paralleled his responses to other major issues of the day. We have seen how Moody often brushed away serious theological issues and championed nonsectarianism in his schools, meetings, and church. The episode Washington Gladden described bears repeating. He reported that a dispute had broken out at Northfield between an evangelist and a higher critic. After listening, Moody simply prayed, “God bless our brother higher Biblical critic and qualify him for his great work. God bless our brother listener and strengthen him for the load that has been laid upon him. God bless our brother accuser and give him more love. Amen.” Gladden concluded, “That was the end of the matter.”⁶⁷ As Dorsett noted, “Moody certainly witnessed these great divisions inside conservative Christian circles, but he was unable or unwilling to do much about them in the place where he had the most influence—Northfield, Massachusetts.”⁶⁸ Later, Dorsett concludes that “Moody’s propensity to want to hide from problems often led to results that were destructive to the very goals he so diligently sought to accomplish.”⁶⁹ That is clearly the case with his handling of racial questions after the Civil War.

Moody’s propensity to avoid conflict was likely intensified by the Civil War. As was noted in chapter 2, the amount of death and destruction caused by the war is astonishing. During the war, Moody went to the front on nine different occasions. He saw the carnage firsthand. One of his first experiences was at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. After the battle, he writes to his mother, describing seeing dead soldiers strewn all over the battlefield with no one to bury them. In addition, he writes of the rough treatment of the wounded.⁷⁰ Moody may have been concerned about reigniting armed conflict. Given what he saw, a desire to avoid more violence is understandable. Whatever the reason, Moody failed. Even a person as zealous for the Scriptures as Moody flinched when faced with this sin. It would be easy to denounce Moody as a man lacking moral courage, but that is far too easy. We humans are frail, and often our faith is weak. That is not to excuse Moody but to remind us of Paul’s injunction in 1 Corinthians 10:12, “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!”

From one angle, Dwight Moody towers as a man of great faith. He was a person with fundamental limitations who gave himself entirely to God. What God chose to do through Moody was astonishing. However, from another angle, this giant had clay feet. When faced with the besetting sin of his country, he backed down. In many ways, Moody’s failure should not be surprising; as we noted at the beginning of the chapter, the Bible is full of stories of godly men and women who failed in times of testing.

Ultimately Moody’s life demonstrates the gospel. In Moody, we see a man gripped by the Holy Spirit, driven to bring people to Christ. We see a man devoted to Scripture and prayer who genuinely loved children and the poor. We see a genuinely humble man who forgoes personal fame. And yet, when presented with opportunities to stand against the sin of racism, Moody remained silent.

Nevertheless, what we see in this moment of failure is the truth of the gospel. While we may be inspired by the past lives of men and women of faith, we must ultimately look solely to Christ, our faith’s author and finisher. Christ alone does for us what no human could ever accomplish. He alone brings spiritual life, forgiveness for sin, right standing before God, and victory over death. That is a sentiment with which Dwight Moody would heartily agree.