End Times Preaching In Seattle And The Politics Of The Apocalypse

 

The Reverend Mark A. Matthews (1867-1940), a southern-born fundamentalist supporter of the Social Gospel movement, came to Seattle in 1902 and became the pastor of Seattle’s First Presbyterian Church. Outspoken and active in public debate, he was a staunch proponent of ‘Social Christianity.’ WSU History Professor Matthew Sutton discusses how Matthews became one of the most powerful religious leaders of the early 20th Century.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction: The end times have apparently been coming for quite a while. In the Northwest, one end-time preacher had the ear of President Wilson. How have evangelical apocalyptic views influenced society and politics? WSU History Professor Matthew Sutton explains in this Past as Prologue commentary, a collaboration between NWPB and WSU’s History Department.

Matthew Sutton: Seattle minister Mark Matthews loved God. And he loved Woodrow Wilson. The tall, lanky, Georgia-born preacher, who looked more like a stern plantation overseer than a warm cleric, relished the fact that Presbyterian and Democrat Woodrow Wilson was now in the White House.

During the early decades of the 20th century, Matthews became one of the most powerful religious leaders in the United States. His Seattle congregation was the largest Presbyterian church in the world with over 10,000 members at its peak.

Early in his career, Matthews was an optimist. He believed in the power of the Christian gospel to establish a literal kingdom of God on Earth. But by the mid-1910s, he determined that the world was careening towards the biblical end times. Matthews was witnessing European nations arming for war. Like many radical evangelicals of his generation. Matthews preached the end was nigh. Jesus, he predicted, was coming back to fight Satan at the battle of Armageddon. And soon.

But this didn’t make Matthews indifferent to worldly affairs. He routinely wrote President Wilson asking for advice, ask for favors, trying to get some support for friends and his community. He even promised his parishioners he would get congressional pork flowing back to the Pacific Northwest. The president occasionally sought Matthews’ opinions in return. Despite Matthews’ apocalyptic world views, he had the ear of the president and no reservations about speaking boldly to men in power.

Matthews was not alone in preaching the end times. Christian apocalypticism has a long and varied history. The modern incarnation of Christian apocalypticism took shape about a century and a half ago. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals and independents, they all shared a commitment to returning the Christian faith to what they saw as its “fundamentals.” They masterfully use the Bible’s most cryptic passages to explain the past, to understand the present, and to predict the future.

Matthews’ efforts highlight the paradox that lie at the heart of fundamentalists’ work. They believed in two almost paradoxical principles. First, fundamentalists felt certain that the battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ was imminent. And second, they believed that Jesus had nevertheless called them to “occupy” this world until that imminent return. These convictions worked in concert to inspire in fundamentalists bold, relentless, unapologetic, and aggressive action unparalleled in modern Christendom.

With time running out, fundamentalists and evangelicals intended to shake the world. They sought instant redemption, immediate transformation. Hence Billy Sunday preached Prohibition and Jerry Falwell extolled the virtues of limited government and Billy Graham harangued against gay rights while each simultaneously believed that the end was near. They were preparing the world for the final judgment, hoping to redeem as many people as possible before all was lost. Theirs was a politics of apocalypse.

As evangelicals’ power and influence has grown in the 21st century, they are investing more in this world than in preparing for the next. Yet a recent poll revealed that 41% of all Americans (well over one-hundred million people) and 58% of white evangelicals believe that Jesus is “definitely” or “probably” going to return by 2050. Even here in the Pacific Northwest, where church membership has been declining for decades, end-times preaching attracts hundreds of thousands of adherents.

The conviction that the end is near is all the incentive evangelicals need to continue to spread their faith—with all of its social and political ramifications—as aggressively and as widely as possible. Evangelicalism, perhaps better than competing faiths, provides millions of people navigating a chaotic and seemingly meaningless world with purpose, significance and an eagerness for action. That was Mark Matthews’ genius, and that is the genius of modern American evangelicalism.

Outro: That’s WSU History Professor Matthew Sutton. His books American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism and Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War can be found at your independent bookseller.  

About the Author:

 

Matthew Sutton is a Professor in the WSU Department of History, Berry Family Distinguished Professor in the Liberal Arts, and History Department Chair. His research and teaching interests focus on the 20th century United States, cultural history, and religious history. He is the author of Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War – the never-before-told story of the missionaries, priests, rabbis, and other religious activists who went to work as spies for the United States government during World War II – and American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism – the first comprehensive history of modern American evangelicalism to appear in a generation. American Apocalypse was named a Choice (American Library Association) “Outstanding Academic Title of 2015.”

 

 

 

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