By Spurgeon’s death in 1892, the Metropolitan Tabernacle had a membership of over 5300. This is remarkable given how plain their services were, how rigorous their membership process was, and how careful they were to maintain accurate rolls. They weren’t large because of modern attractional gimmicks. These weren’t inflated numbers due to sloppy membership practices. Rather, this was a meaningful membership made up of those who understood the gospel and who knew they had a role to play in the mission of the church.

In this post I am interviewing Dr. Geoff Chang, Assistant Professor of Church History and Historical Theology and the Curator of the Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Chang’s latest book is The Army of God: Spurgeon’s Vision for the Church.

[TK] Your book is titled The Army of God, suggesting Spurgeon’s fondness for military terminology (“the church militant”) when speaking of the church’s role in the world. What drew him to that type of rhetoric?

[GC] Two main factors drew him to that kind of rhetoric: the Bible and church history. Spurgeon loved the stories of Israel’s battles, God’s defeat of Egypt, David and Goliath, and much more. At the same time, Spurgeon understood that physical Israel foreshadowed the spiritual Israel that would come through the Messiah. As those who have been rescued from sin, Christians were called not to fight against flesh and blood but to take up the sword of the Spirit. Through the preaching of the Word, God rescues sinners from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of light. This was at the heart of the church’s mission and spiritual battle.

It was this vision that Spurgeon saw played out in church history. From Athanasius’ stand against Arianism, to Luther’s denouncing of papal authority, to the martyrs who died under Mary, to Bunyan’s vision of Christian’s battle against Apollyon, Spurgeon saw the spiritual warfare of the New Testament played out in church history, and he understood that the church also had a war to fight against sin and error in his day.

You note that there were three main challenges to evangelical ecclesiology among Spurgeon’s dissenting churches: ritualism, revivalism, and rationalism. Can you briefly explain each of these challenges, and how evangelical churches reacted against them?

During the 19th century, the Oxford Movement arose in the Church of England, which sought to promote greater reverence and devotion to Christianity by returning to medieval Catholic forms, liturgies, and even doctrine. In response to this ritualism, many evangelical churches responded by swinging the pendulum to the other end, lowering their view of the church, the minister, and the sacraments. In doing so, evangelicals considered the church as having little or nothing to do with salvation. The minister, then, became more of a professional organizer rather than a minister of God’s Word.

Revivalism was also a challenge for UK evangelicals. In the 19th century revivals, culminating with Moody’s evangelistic tours, many ministers began to adopt his methods and techniques, which emphasized immediate response and numerical results. With the emphasis being on individual conversion, many churches benefited from an influx of new members. But little thought was given by these members, or their pastors, to the historic ecclesiological tradition of their churches. Practices like church membership and members meetings may have remained, but the theological reasons for them were increasingly forgotten. Evangelicals focused on cooperating together for missions and evangelism, but often at the cost of minimizing ecclesiological distinctives.

Finally, the growth of rationalism in Spurgeon’s day, which placed human reason above the authority of Scripture, also affected the ecclesiology of evangelical churches.

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