This sixth volume, The Modern Age, tells the story from the French Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall (1789–1989). During this time preaching continued to support its historic faith while the church undertook to resist secularization, come to grips with biblical criticism, and initiate bold overseas missions.
Opening with the revived Catholic Order of Preachers, Abraham Kuyper, and Friedrich Schleiermacher, Old moves on to consider John Henry Newman and Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He then carefully examines the evangelical Calvinism of New England, as well as the beginnings of black preaching and the great American school of Charles Finney, Dwight L. Moody, and Harry Emerson Fosdick. In the twentieth century Old’s focus falls on the crises of the two world wars, especially the courageous ministries of German, Dutch, and Hungarian preachers during the Third Reich.
“The Thieves Who Died with Him.’ Christ did not die alone. There was the ‘coarsened” (Page 933)
“The sermon preached in Bremen is surely one of the outstanding sermons of the twentieth century.21 It is outstanding first of all because of the clarity and vision of its prophetic message, and second because it heralds the restoration of classical expository preaching as it had been exercised by the Fathers of the ancient Church and the Reformers of sixteenth-century Protestantism. No twenty-minute homily, this running commentary on the story of Jesus coming to the disciples in the storm at sea from the Gospel of Matthew must have taken a good hour.” (Page 776)
“Theologian or nontheologian, we simply did not know our Bibles. Expository preaching was beyond the capability of the average mainline Protestant minister.” (Page 580)
“Here is the ultimate preacher of American optimism, the ultimate evangelist of self-help.” (Page 572)
“Preaching is worship because it is the Word of God that is being preached.” (Page 344)
Studying these volumes is like walking around a great cathedral [. . . ] every section, however distinctive, unites in a grand design whose aim is to restore preaching to its rightful place. This multivolume work is easily the best history of preaching ever written, one that will serve generations of those whose faith comes by hearing.
—William Edgar, Westminster Theological Seminary
Old has bequeathed to the church of the twenty–first century the definitive history of preaching, a spiritual feast for scholars and preachers alike for years and years to come.
—James F. Kay, Princeton Theological Seminary
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Glenn Crouch
9/22/2017