Dr. John D. Hannah



..last weekend I was at the Austin Chinese Church.. which is a

flourishing church, and growing in the Chinese community in Austin.. I

spoke Friday night at a college meeting... and they were really some

sharp kids.. and Sunday I spoke at the church.. and Saturday.. had

dinner.. there was a couple there, both of which are research

scientists... and they wanted to talk to me about the fact that

Christians aren't going into the hard sciences... left that whole world

to the secularists.. and that was an interesting discussion..



I'll be going to San Antonio this weekend.. to speak at a church..

reformation sunday.. that should be fun.. but I don't have to go down

'til tomorrow night.. come back Sunday night.. my eldest daughter is

coming home from college today.. it's really a great day for me.. get to

see her, and corrupt her a bit.. makes it nice... what that means...

I'll be with her all day tomorrow.. hah hah.. but then Carolyn will come

come just as I'm leaving, and she'll have Becky Saturday night through

Sunday night... so she can straighten her out.. should be a great time..

most couples don't get individual time with their kids.. they get

together time...



Prayer: Our Father, we gather before you.. our great God.. to adore

you.. to worship you.. we thank you for that great grace you give to

us.. your Son, our Savior.. we thank you for the Lord Jesus, and for His

coming to us and to this earth.. and for the ministry of the Holy Spirit

that opens our blind eyes to see him... hanging upon Calvary's tree for

us.. that we might embrace him believing... we thank you for this

message, this trophy you've granted to us, to enjoy, to hope in, to

proclaim while we have this life.. Father, we pray that we might be

faithful to you while we struggle along.. these are your servants.. we

commit them to you.. as we think about systems of faith.. that you would

give us understanding.. give us compassion.. understand it first, and

the humility to criticize it second.. we just commit these things to

you.. we love you.. we thank you.. in Jesus' name.



..this movement is born.. it's a latter day movement.. it's a

restoration movement... I think they're very truthful, or upfront..

because they believe this movement of the Spirit of God is going to

literally sweep the world.. that's their eschatology, that's their

passion, that's their commitment... however, two interesting things

begin to happen along the 1930's and the 1940's.. they become a very

prosperous and growing movement.. and they end their isolationism..

remember, early up, your Charismatics, or your old Pentecostals are

basically a come-outist movement that are really on their own.. they're

not interacting with the larger evangelical movement.. for reasons that

are our fault and their fault.. they believe they have the sole gospel,

and that we don't.. so they tend to look a bit down upon us, and they

tend to.. be judgmental.. we on the other hand tend to be that too..



..there is a conservative movement in this country that goes by a

variety of names.. it's called evangelicalism.. it's called

conservatism.. it's called fundamentalism.. they're all synonymns.. now

what it is, up until the 1930's, is a group of people that share a

common beligerance and hostility to certain social, cultural, and

theological movements that are gathering momentum in the United States..

so what these people are is a group that technically don't agree with

each other on some issues, but do on a couple.. they share antipathy

against liberalism..



it's a complicated story.... early 19th century revivalism, that

incorporated methodism and holiness, gave birth to fundamentalism...



a second phase of restorationism called.. charismatic renewalism.. that

will lose fire.. that will come in the 60's.. and then in the 80's, that

will have died.. and we'll be in the third phase of latter-day'ism.. I

think what we're seeing today is the decline of the Vineyard movement..

which seems so strange, but I think it's already.. I think John is

realizing now that.. that great promise day isn't going to come.. and

the Vineyard movement is becoming more conservative.... there's that

incessant hope for the restoration of Christianity..



the basic point is this.. the 1920's was a terribly fracturing time..

conservatives, no matter what you call them, lost control of mainline

denominations machinery and seminary and publishing house... and that's

what precipitated a withdrawal in the 20's into small splinter groups..

and we sort of scattered.. and we rebuilt publishing houses like

Zondervan.. and Revell... and new seminaries dot the landscape.. to

serve this emerging movement.. but by the time we come to the 40's,

there's the sense that a lot of that fracturing was necessary.. there's

a downside to that fracturing.. while we needed to separate from

liberalism.. we didn't really need to separate from each other.. and so

there is a creation of umbrella groups.. and I think it's precipitated

on basically three scores.. one, we were lonely.. that may not be the

best reason, but that is one.. second, in those days, the government,

federal gov't, was getting into radio, but there wasn't enough radio

programming to fill the time.. so they were giving it away, literally...

and there's a mad scramble to get that free radio time.. something that

we can't really identify with these days.. but, liberals in the country

were claiming that they spoke solely for Christianity, and therefore

demanded that free time slot.. evangelicals, on the other hand, claimed

that they didn't, but they couldn't muster enough numbers to prove that

we were anything.. so it became imperative that we create something that

could cluster evangelicals into a numerical force.. that's why the NAE

is born.. the other thing is World War II comes.. suddenly there is a

mobilization of hundreds of thousands of men and women.. which means

that there is a huge opening of slots in the chaplaincy.. and again, the

liberals claimed that they spoke for Christianity.. therefore they

should fill those slots.. evangelicals responded by saying they spoke

for a segment but not the whole.. so we should get a proportionate slice

of the pie.. but to do that, we had to prove that we were large.. we

couldn't get it all, we just wanted a slice of the action.. so out of

those exegencies we were lonely, radio time, and quota in the military,

there is a necessity to get as many of us together as possible, to

define evangelicalism as broadly as biblically possible.. and you create

an organization.. the NAE is born...