Student Volunteer Movement

It was a time of increasing Protestant wealth; Christian tycoons under attack for their enormous profits were more than happy to contribute large sums for the support of the foreign missionary enterprise.

With a perspective sharpened by knowledge of post-War events, historians of American religion have pointed to underlying conflicts and discrepancies which belied the idealistic confidence of the pre-War era.

Economic turmoil, urbanization, the rise of historical criticism and evolutionary theory, the issue of liberalism versus revivalism—all these potentially disruptive elements lay beneath the assured facade of pre-War American Protestantism.

Handy, like Ahlstrom, has pointed to the dangers which were inherent in sublimation of theological and social controversy under activist crusades: "The possibility of a greater sense of self-criticism, which might have come out of a more open confrontation of the parties, was largely suppressed, in considerable measure because of the necessities of the missionary consensus.

Its emergence at a summer student conference held on the campus of the Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts had all the drama of a theatrical play, and its story was told countless times over the decades of the Movement's existence.

In 1885, Luther Wishard discussed with evangelist Dwight L. Moody the possibility of holding a Bible study conference for undergraduate students, sponsored by the intercollegiate YMCA, on the grounds of the Moody-backed Mount Hermon School.

"[10] At last the problem was solved as John Forman, who had not been at Northfield but was one of the original five volunteers at Princeton, to accompany Wilder on his tour of North American college and university campuses during the academic year 1886–1887.

[13]) The travels of Wilder and Forman had been completely financed by D.W. McWilliams, secretary and treasurer of the Manhattan Elevated Railways Co., but it was clear that the movement needed a broader financial base in order to continue.

A fourth peril concerned the growing class of volunteers classified as "hindered", those who had signed the declaration of purpose but now showed little likelihood of making it to the foreign field because of health, family or financial reasons.

Ambition, which drives some men into constructing great industries, was there the impulse to have a part in bringing that dominion to pass; and devotion to a purpose, which is the secret of success in commercial enterprise, was there manifest in the determination of those four thousand delegates thus expressed to make known to all the world "in this generation" the Good News.

The Interchurch World Movement symbolized the crusading idealism of the times with its aim of gathering all American benevolent and missionary societies into a grand campaign for the spread of Christianity.

When Sherwood Eddy took the same tack, some of the students disclosed their feelings to him frankly, saying "why do you bring us this piffle, these old shibboleths, these old worn-out phrases, why are you talking to us about the living God and the divine Christ?"

Though Pierson himself denied this meaning and other SVM leaders, such as Mott and Speer, repeatedly urged a broader interpretation which involved church planting and educational work, the watchword remained a center of controversy.

For the missionary enterprise, the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy was framed in terms of the relative merits of an emphasis on individual evangelism and salvation or a broader, social impact on foreign culture based on the tenets of Christianity.

Sherwood Eddy wrote in July 1922 to the Executive Committee:"I believe that the demand of the progressive students at Des Moines voiced the new sentiment in the colleges for a more socialized and broader presentation and conduct of our whole movement ... .

A culmination of these liberal views was reached in the 1932 report of the Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry, a Rockefeller-funded body established to review the work of the American Protestant missionary enterprise.

"[31] Wilder's concluding plea that theological controversy be avoided in Movement work reflected the failure of the SVM leadership to comprehend the inevitability of liberal /conservative conflict in the changing religious scene.

At the highest echelons of authority men like General Secretary Wilder and his chosen successor, Jesse R. Wilson, as well as various members of the Executive Committee, held to a basically conservative outlook throughout the period.

A letter from his friend E. Fay Campbell again suggests the extent to which the Movement was wracked by conservative/liberal dissension: "Your years as SVM secretary have been terribly hard due to the spirit of the times, R.P.

The existence of this contingent explains the fact that many of the publications and convention themes of the period were rather far to the liberal side of the theological and missiological spectrum despite the SVM's leaders' conservative reputations.

"[21] A direct rival to the Student Volunteer Movement's work was growing in the conservative wings during this period, although not emerging officially in the United States until 1940 as the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

[37] In 1935, General Secretary Jesse Wilson and Vice Chairman of the Administrative Committee C. Darby Fulton resigned, essentially because of the increasingly liberal drift of the Student Volunteer Movement.

There was, however, a growing conviction that the Volunteer Movement should cooperate very closely with the National Intercollegiate Christian Council (YMCA and YWCA), as well as with denominational bodies, while still maintaining its organizational autonomy.

At a consultation at Oberlin College in 1936, measures were taken to consolidate cooperation with the National Intercollegiate Christian Council, including the radical decree that individual SVM members and regional Student Volunteer groups should incorporate all their activities into the NICC work in their locality.

A North American Student Conference on the World Mission of Christianity, sponsored by the NICC, the Council of Church Boards of Education, and the SVM, was held in Toronto in December 1939.

"[46] In 1948 it was reported to the SVM Board of Directors that many formerly strong student volunteer movements overseas had faded in importance, and missionary education tasks were often carried by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship groups in these countries.

In a meeting in February 1920, the Standing Committee discussed at length the pros and cons of Student Volunteer Movement involvement in home missions work, but decided to continue the status quo focus on recruiting for foreign fields only.

There was the related issue of the membership basis of the SVM—should it be restricted to individuals who had made a specifically missionary vocational commitment or should a wider base of students, those who were supportive of the Church's world mission, be considered members of the Movement?

The resurgence sparked by increased religious interest and the nation's improving economic condition appears to have peaked for the SVM towards the middle of the 1950s, or at least to have taken a different form as the Movement was drawn into ecumenical ventures and faced with theoretical questions about its recruiting program.

The Commissions program included staff visits to campuses, local Fellowship gatherings of volunteers, Week-End Conversations on Mission, personal encouragement and counseling, Frontier Seminars, the Quadrennial Conference, ecumenical summer service projects, and so forth.