The Charismatic Renewal
A Publishing House for Charismatics: Logos International
For the first years of the renewal there was no national charismatic magazine other than Voice (FGBMFI) and Trinity (Episcopalism). This was remedied with the appearance of Logos Journal begun in 1971. It was published by a Christian businessman active in the FGBMFI, from Plainfield, New Jersey, Daniel Malachuk. Logos Journal carried articles from and about the whole spectrum of Spirit-filled authors and teachers including the “Word Faith” ministers such as Kenneth Hagin, but including more traditional Pentecostal leaders such as Kathryn Kuhlman.
Even before, in 1966, Malachuk began the Logos International publishing house with the publication a book that was an expose of spiritualism written by an ex-medium, Raphael Gasson, The Challenging Counterfeit.[25] The book became a best seller. Malachuk’s next major success was the publication of Nicky Cruz’s book, Run, Baby Run, the exciting story of the conversion to the Spirit-led life of a gang leader in New York City.[26] That book sold eight million copies. Malachuck went full time into publishing and followed with a string of successful charismatic and Pentecostal works, including Fr. Dennis Bennett’s classic Nine O’clock in the Morning (1970).[27] Logos International books printed an incredible 45 million copies from 1966 to 1981.[28] In the mid-1970s it was publishing 50 titles of year from Pentecostal and charismatic authors.
Probably nothing else demonstrates the shift of spirituality away from other-worldly traditional Christianity, to the new this-worldly and Hebraic spirituality of the charismatic renewal than the books published by Logos International. Many of its authors incorporated the prosperity doctrine from E.W. Kenyon and Kenneth Hagin. The most salient example of this was the books by Harold Hill. Hill was a businessman and electrical engineer who had ruined his life with alcoholism until he cried out to God in desperation. He found himself led to AA meeting where he gave his life to Christ and began an amazing turnaround. His life became a Holy Spirit adventure of restoration and joy.
In his first and most influential book, How to Live Like a King’s Kid he described one incident after another in which amazing and miraculous outcomes result from calling on Jesus and the power of the Holy Ghost.[29] For example, a power company was having trouble debugging new equipment which was indispensable for its business. The manager called him and explained:
“We thought we could find the trouble. We had the technicians from General Electric and our own technicians working for two weeks, but we’re stumped. What are you going to do about it?’
Well, praise the Lord, I had a consultant, the best in the business, Jesus himself. …
I began to pray, and immediately while I was praying, I knew exactly what was wrong. I saw it as clearly as a picture on a TV screen. This was my first experience with diagnosing a serious and complicated electronic problem strictly by the Holy Spirit, and Satan said, “You crazy fool. You’re just imagining that. It’s too ridiculous.” But I was too dumb to doubt the Word of God.
I walked into the power station, directed entirely by the Holy Spirit. … And so I walked over to the spot that I had seen in the Spirit as being the trouble source and issued instructions to the technicians as to what to do to cure it….
One of them said, “Yes sir.” Although what I suggested seemed absurd, they had nothing else to try. So they did what I told them, pushed the button, threw the switches, and the thing took off like it was supposed to…”[30]
In Hill we see the optimism and an unbounded faith that the Holy Spirit will give the believer victorious answers to everyday, “earthy” problems. The Logos International also introduced the charismatic reader into the very this-worldly aspect of life in the body and marriage. Such works as Patricia Banta Kreml’s book, Slim for Him, with its concern for toned and attractive body, H. Page Williams, X-Rated Marriages, would not have been printed by a Christian press any century before the 20th.[31] Though the Puritans develop the first prosperity doctrine and had a high view of marriage, they were also reluctant to write about sexuality even within Christian marriage.[32]
The reality is that the Church as whole lacked a Biblically sound doctrine of sex and marriage – the product of its Hellenistic heritage. Christians claimed that only parental education was the proper venue for this matter – which were almost universally inadequate. All of which means that sexuality had no specifically Christian literature until the decades of the mid-20th Century – a horrible gap. Dan Malachuk‘s Logos International played an important role in ending this gap.
Logos International books covered the whole spectrum of Spirit-filled authors. Logos books included many titles from traditional Pentecostal authors such as Jack Hayford, Jimmy Swaggart and David Wilkerson. It published books by the new charismatic televangelists such Pat Robertson and Jim Bakker, and internationally known charismatics such as Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho of Korea. Logos also published books authored by CFO alumni such as, Harald Bredesen, Rufus Moseley, and especially Agnes Sanford. The Logos edition of The Healing Light (1972) was a key healing text of the early renewal. Logos also published most of Mrs. Sanford’s later works as well, such as her autobiography Sealed Orders, Twice Seven Words, and her prophetic classic, Creation Waits.[33]
Malachuk’s Logos International and his Logos Journal crashed into bankruptcy in 1981 in spite of excellent book sales. The problem stemmed from Malachuck’s unwise attempt to publish a weekly charismatic newspaper, the National Courier, for the Spirit-filled community. It was first class and very expensive, and, like most new ventures, lost money. Malachuk was soon transferring revenues that were rightfully authors’ royalties from Logos International to keep the newspaper going. Bankruptcy came in 1981 with dozens of Logos International writers losing much of their royalty earnings.[34]
Category: Church History, Summer 2016
Followers
Fans
