The Blessings and Burdens of Revival: George Jeffreys: A Revivalist, a Movement and a Crisis, by Neil Hudson

The leaders in Elim had supported Jeffreys’ own desire for his prominent position within Elim since this had suited their desire for a cautious approach to be taken in regards to the use of spiritual gifts. However, when the arguments concerning his demands for changes in church government became prominent, the fact that he had received sole publicity within Elim resulted in the leaders’ suspicion that he would use his influence with the people to sway them to support his own views on British Israelism.

The effects of a successful revivalist on his denomination

The first and most obvious effect he had on the developing denomination was that his ministry proved to be the catalyst for the growth of many new churches. When the churches were growing and Jeffreys was in the flush of his success, this was good news for all the Pentecostals that were pleased to be associated with him. Ministers who followed him into the churches were pleased to be able to rely on Jeffreys’ ability to keep on drawing crowds to the churches. If a minister was struggling to maintain the growth of a church a few years after the initial evangelistic campaign, they knew that by calling on Jeffreys they would be able to restore the church numerically.

This association between church growth and Jeffreys was so strong that it came to be believed that he achieved this single-handedly. This became such a problem that when he left the denomination there was an attempt to reassess his contribution. The leaders recognised that if this did not happen they would be consigned to live with his abiding memory.

In 1942, one of Elim’s senior leaders, Hathaway, began to question the claims that Jeffreys had made for himself, and therefore, began to dismantle the mystique that had arisen around him. He wrote to Phillips enclosing a list of churches that Jeffreys had not opened.³⁴ These were churches others had opened or which had already been in existence before his campaigns. Phillips, from this information, estimated that only one in three churches had been founded by Jeffreys and suggested that Hathaway include this in the next Ministerial Circular.³⁵ That Phillips suggested this is interesting since it could indicate that Hathaway’s investigation had not been undertaken for general dissemination, but for his own interest. This would support the view that even even Jeffreys’ closest workers were undertaking a general reassessment. Hathaway demonstrated the perceived significance attached to this when he replied, ‘Pastor Brewster and I had quite a thrill when from memory I named well over 100 that I could think were not founded by George Jeffreys’.³⁶ This revision of history, and attempt to put Jeffreys’ influence in perspective, was necessary if Elim were to survive without him.

The consequences of a Revivalist becoming a Reformer

Jeffreys believed that he had been given a divine mandate for the reformation of the Movement in 1937, when he received the command to ‘set your house in order’. In his own mind, therefore, Jeffreys believed that he had to be obedient to all that God had told him, whatever the cost. Since he believed that headquarters was embroiled in ‘Babylonish control’ of churches, he was not able to rest from his fight for the freedom that he envisaged for the churches. For many, including those who had been the closest to Jeffreys, it was assumed that he was simply deluded in his assumption that God had spoken at all. McWhirter, a member of Jeffreys’ Revival Party, pointed out that his major success had been as an evangelist, and that this was the area in which God had particularly gifted him. It was when he directed his efforts to work as a Reformer that problems arose. He wrote, ‘When the Revivalist became a reformer of church order he lost his extraordinary power’.³⁷ Earlier, he pointed to the results of Jeffreys’ reformation as evidence of the fact that he had been mistaken, writing, ‘The bad fruits of his reformism is the evidence that he was not motivated by the Holy Spirit. What he called a vision was only an illusion. His delusion was embodied in Noel Brookes’ (sic) [book] “Fighting (sic) for the Faith and Freedom”.’³⁸ This view from one of the members of the Revival Party, emphasising the results of Jeffreys’ attempts at reformation was echoed in 1993 by J.T. Bradley. Reflecting on the split he wrote, ‘I have seen a Movement brought to the brink of destruction and only saved therefrom by men who adhered to the Word of God. Alas, when men and women get what they feel is a word from the Lord it seems impossible to convince them that they are mistaken.’³⁹

Tags: Elim, George Jeffreys, pentecostal history, revival

Category: Church History, Fall 2012, Pneuma Review