This article is reproduced with permission from John Tucker's Sutherland Lecture in November 2024. John is the Principal of Carey Baptist College, where he also lectures in Christian history and preaching. He attends Windsor Park Baptist Church.
In February 1919, the editor of the New Zealand Baptist magazine issued a stirring summons to ministers returning from their summer vacation: "The supreme thing in the Church, so far as its public and outer work is concerned, is preaching. That was the method of Jesus. The fiery tongue of Pentecost declared it to be the weapon of the new faith…We hope that every preacher will resolve on dedicating [their] best and most sacrificial efforts to the work of the pulpit."[1]
The editor was the Rev. J.J. North. John James North (1871–1950) was arguably the most influential leader in the history of the New Zealand Baptist movement.[2] He successfully pastored two of the largest and most influential Baptist churches in the country – Vivian Street in Wellington (1905–1913) and Oxford Terrace in Christchurch (1913–1926).[3] He wrote best-selling publications about the Christian faith. One of them, Me a Christian? Why Not? (1939), sold in excess of 60,000 copies.[4]
He was remarkably active in denominational affairs. While still in his first pastorate, at just 30 years of age, he was elected secretary of the Baptist Union of New Zealand. Twice, he was elected president of the Baptist Union. For decades, he was a senior member of the Baptist Union's Executive Council, or Assembly Council. For 32 years (1915–1948), he edited the denomination's official journal, shaping Baptist identity and convictions through his incisive editorials.[5]
When our churches, one hundred years ago last month, decided to establish their own theological college, Carey Baptist College, North was appointed the founding principal. And, for the next twenty years (1926–1945) as principal, he trained a whole generation of ministers, stamping his mark on their lives and their ministries.
Throughout his ministry, from platform and pulpit, in pamphlets and newspapers, North participated in many public debates, earning him certain public notoriety for his pugnacious pronouncements on a range of social issues. Both within and beyond the Baptist Union, J.J. North had an influential ministry as a pastoral leader, denominational leader, journal editor, college principal, and social reformer.
But at heart, North was a preacher. His leadership and influence, to a very large extent, flowed out of his preaching. As a magazine editor, for example, some of his sharpest editorials were recycled sermons from the previous month. As an author, he drew heavily from his preaching file. Most of his publications began life as sermons. As a theological college principal, he insisted "that his main task was to prepare…preachers."[6] As a denominational leader and social activist, much of his influence was felt through his preaching, whether at denominational assemblies, local churches, or public meetings. In the early twentieth century, newspapers frequently carried reports of sermons from the country's leading city pulpits, and North's sermons attracted considerable attention. It was largely through his preaching that North participated in public debate.[7] It's impossible, therefore, to understand North's influence apart from his preaching.
So, what was his preaching like? Those who heard them described his addresses as 'powerful'[8], 'forceful'[9], 'vigorous'[10] and 'forthright'[11]. In terms of his delivery, North spoke with passion, conviction and authority. He himself said: "One thing must dominate the presentation, and that is urgency. The take-it-or-leave-it tone is improper. The casual method which hurls undigested texts, or that (dry-eyed) cracks the whips of hell, is also improper."[12] "When we can speak of Jesus without a tear in our voice it will be time to quit preaching for stone-breaking."[13] While North could be caustic and aggressive in tone, he spoke with obvious sincerity and sometimes deep emotion.[14]
God's word
So much for delivery. What of the content? The manuscripts of North's published and unpublished sermons reveal several distinctive features. It is widely accepted that evangelical Christianity has been characterized by four defining marks: a particular regard for the Bible as the inspired word of God, an emphasis on the cross and substitutionary atonement, a belief in the importance of personal conversion from sin to Christ, and a commitment to active service, both in the form of evangelism and social action.[15] North's preaching bore each of these marks.
First, North's sermons were firmly rooted in the Bible. They were not, generally speaking, exegetical. North very rarely worked verse by verse through a passage. But, the substance of each message was determined by a biblical text or texts. According to one of his students, North firmly believed that no one had any right to preach unless it was from the Scriptures.[16] And he impressed on his students that "worth-while preaching could arise only out of deep study of the word and its interpreters."[17] North clearly had a high regard for the Bible. In his view, it was the 'living' word of God, a word that "pulses with power", a word that creates and sustains and renews the church.[18] "Miracles happen", North said, "when the word is preached."[19]
This conviction about the power of God's word may explain the note of urgency and authority in North's ministry. Certainly, it was the loss of this conviction on the part of many of his contemporaries that, in North's opinion, explained the 'hesitating' tone in so many pulpits. There is not, he wrote, "the eagerness of a lawyer pleading for a verdict against the apathy or hostility of a jury. There is not the triumphant certainty of a prophet." There is, instead, "a sort of nebulous haze that envelops many a pulpit. The talk may be interesting and educating. But there is a 'this is how it seems to me' sort of air about the preaching effort."
North attributed this to the 'solvent' of modern relativism by which the notion of truth and the authority of God's word had been dissolved.[20] So, in his sermons and editorials, he vigorously and repeatedly affirmed (what he called) 'the glorious inspiration' and 'infallibility' of Holy Scripture.[21] The Bible was, in his words, "that mammoth Book, which towers above all lesser books like a Colossus."[22] North's preaching, then, was shaped by a deep regard for Scripture.
For North, the central theme of the Bible was Christ and his atoning death on the cross. "The vicarious sacrifice of Christ", he said, "is the burden of the Scriptures. When that is missed, all is missed. Religion dwindles into a morality class, and slips towards a pallid Unitarianism, when it loses sight of the Cross, and of that which the Cross stands for—the eternal and merciful and suffering love of our Father in Heaven."[23] North was emphatic about this: "All preaching fails which is not centred in Christ."[24] The preacher's burning ambition should be for "the bewildered world to see Jesus, not a stained-glass Jesus, stiff and proper, but the vivid, unexpected, human, divine Jesus Who clove time in twain and turned the stream of the ages by planting His Cross in their midst, and Who is the one hope of our wayward race."[25]
Throughout his ministry, North became increasingly concerned about the way modern ministers failed to preach the Atonement with clarity and vigour. In his presidential address to the Jubilee conference of the Baptist Union in 1932, he declared: "Our religion is Christ and Christ set forth as crucified...We shall utterly fail if we merely preach a social gospel."[26] In his view, "The note of a standing or falling Church is the second birth. There is no alternative. This religion with all its splendour in idea and in accomplishment will disappear with the disappearance of conversion. In our Church this must be everything."[27]
So, along with a high regard for the Bible as the inspired word of God, and a strong emphasis on the cross and substitutionary atonement, North's preaching demonstrated a deep belief in the importance of personal conversion from sin to Christ. As with many evangelical pastors of his day, North made his Sunday evening sermons decidedly evangelistic in focus. Reflecting on 30 years of pastoral ministry, he claimed that the message underlying every sermon he preached was "the cross of Jesus Christ and the redeeming power of his love."[28]
This was the testimony of those who heard him preach. At the conclusion of his pastorate at what is now Wellington Central Baptist, the church members minuted that his "exaltation of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Friend of Sinners has been the means of leading many to the cross of Christ."[29] When North came under attack within the Baptist Union for his alleged 'modernism', conservative Baptist leaders like Joseph Kemp leapt to his defence. At the 1927 annual Conference, Kemp announced that "He resented very deeply aspersions that had been made against the 'soundness' of Principal North. He declared that if North was a modernist, so in the same sense was he. He did not always agree in details with his friend, but they stood together for the great evangelical verities."[30] Kemp recognized in North "a total commitment to evangelism and conversionism." [31] Yes, North was willing to embrace many findings of modern biblical scholarship, but in his particular regard for the Bible, his sharp focus on the cross, and his insistent calls for conversion, he was a traditional evangelical preacher.
God's world
What set North apart from many other conservative evangelical preachers was his determination to relate the gospel to the cultural context in which he lived and moved and preached his sermons. A number of scholars have argued that there was a loss of social concern among evangelical Christians in Great Britain and North America during the 1920s and 1930s.[32] New Zealand was no exception. Conservative Baptist preachers like Joseph Kemp emphasized separation from the world rather than transformation of the world.[33] But not North.
Early in his ministry, he gave a paper to the Baptist Hui in which he claimed that "The perennial need of the Church is the thinker, or I shall rather say, the prophet, who shall bring the facts of Christianity into relation with the thoughts and needs of to-day."[34] Throughout his preaching ministry, North attempted to do just that. Yes, his sermons often addressed the kinds of social issues that aroused the concern of evangelicals generally in the early twentieth century, issues like sexual immorality, alcohol and especially gambling.[35] But, North's sermons were unusual in that they often ranged beyond these traditional evangelical targets to address a wider set of social issues.
One such issue was the treatment of conscientious objectors during World War One. In one notorious incident, 14 men were forcefully shipped to the front lines in Europe in what Belich calls "a process objectively akin to sustained torture."[36] One of them refused to walk the last mile to the front and was dragged over rugged ground and through shell-holes by a cable wire tied around his chest, leaving a gaping hole in his back and hip "about a foot long and nearly as wide."[37] Some were lashed to poles in a kind of mock 'crucifixion': Field Punishment No. 1.[38] North was trenchant in his criticism of this policy of transporting conscientious objectors to the front. "Conscience is being bludgeoned", he thundered. "Liberty herself is affronted by the crimes that are done in her name."[39] Eventually, in response to public criticism of this kind, the government appointed a commission of enquiry.
North's preaching also called attention to the unjust social and economic structures that blighted the lives of many of the poorer working classes. In 1907, for example, he spoke out on the issue of overcrowding in Wellington. He told of the "cruel rents" being extracted from poor families who were being "herded under one roof", of "yards with scarcely barely breathing space in them", and of "suburbs exploited by land syndicates to the cruel loss of working men." In North's view, this was "one of the scandals of the Universe." In one sermon, he roundly rebuked the government for refusing to legislate, saying: "It seems to me to be almost too sad for speech that in these new lands we should be building old-world cities, and repeating the follies which have cramped the lives and spoiled the earth for one million of our fellow-men." He went on to say that ministers of the gospel deserved to be "unfrocked" if they "should suffer [such] great wrongs to grow" without recording their "emphatic protest".[40]
Limitations and Criticisms
While North regularly denounced what he saw as grave social wrongs, his attempts to relate the gospel to the issues of his day were not always effective. His preaching against social evil was afflicted by two fundamental weaknesses.
David Bebbington has observed that in their social crusades, evangelicals have often had a tendency towards clamour and a bellicose or war-like tone.[41] Driven as he was by a powerful sense that he was fighting the very forces of wickedness, North held nothing back in his criticism of opponents. The Catholic Church, in particular, came in for withering attack. In relation to the prohibition campaign, for example, North accused the Roman Catholic Church of "low intrigues" and "malicious slanderings" and warned, "If New Zealand is robbed of the glory of sweeping this curse from her shores…it will be because of the dead-weight of the Roman Church."[42]
This "morally retrograde Church" was also, North claimed, a "hothouse" for the "gambling mania". He mused, "There seems to be something in Romanism that drugs the conscience...[It] is everywhere a drag on social progress, an incubus on the body politic."[43] Now, this scathing denunciation of Catholicism and Catholic attitudes to alcohol and gambling might have aroused the support of some Protestants, but it also aroused the hostility of Catholics and was ultimately counterproductive.[44] Indeed, in later life, North admitted to friends, "without retracting one word of what I then said, if I were to live my life over again, I would not preach like that."[45]
According to Bebbington, the evangelical style of social crusade was also marked by "inflated rhetoric and exaggerated charges."[46] To arouse widespread and outspoken protest and so convince authorities of the strength of their movement, evangelicals often deployed emotional and extreme language. Again, J.J. North was no exception. When he discovered that certain newsagents in Wellington were selling "indecent" postcards, he warned his congregation, "If the lepers who devised these cards had their way restraints would everywhere be thrown off and wholesome life would rot and fester into slum life."
In his view, "The indignation which is alight in the city ought to burn until the bookseller who ventures to expose unclean papers or cards will have his business doom written upon his lintel."[47]
On another occasion, after reading that as many as 6000 abortions were performed each year in New Zealand, North fulminated: "Lust, using the implements of France…is destroying the fountain of life, and is openly threatening this country with early destruction at the hands either of yellow races or by the action of slow attrition."[48] This kind of apocalyptic language, appealing to fear and prejudice, was not ultimately persuasive. Newspapers such as New Zealand Truth pilloried North as a puritanical parson, a "bilious bigot", a "hide-bound, agitating, self-righteous sin-shifter" who was "happy only when making others miserable."[49]
According to the Truth, North's concerns, like most of North's fears, proved to be a "mere wind egg". He peddled in "piffle" and falsehood.[50] A column entitled 'North's Naggings' claimed: "He'll allege anything that he thinks will put a nail in the coffin of the bookmaker, or the punter, or the racing clubs, or anybody that doesn't turn out on Sunday with a bible and a hymn-book, and put a coin of the realm in the collection plate."[51] So, while North's preaching could arouse powerful support from evangelical Protestants, his uncompromising posture, truculent tone and overheated rhetoric did, on occasion, harden opposition and undermine his efforts.
Scientist, Artist, Entrepreneur
But, North's conviction that preachers must "relate Christ and the implications of his gospel to the thoughts and problems of [their] age" meant more than applying the gospel to certain social problems. It also meant presenting the gospel in ways that matched the worldview and idioms of the day. In other words, it required not only criticism of the modern world but also collaboration with it.
According to North, the worldview of early twentieth-century New Zealand was essentially scientific: reason and evidence ruled. Consequently, he said, "The pulpiteer can no longer be a pope…We must present a religion based on fact and in accordance with fact."[52] "People are not convinced, but repulsed, by screaming assertions, garnished with popish anathemas."[53] Now, North was not himself averse to the occasional screaming assertion, but he did attempt to present a religion based on fact. He frequently preached sermons to show how modern scientific theories like evolution supported or were consistent with Christian doctrine.[54] In most of his sermons, he appealed to 'secular' authorities to support the claims of Scripture.
For instance, in a sermon on 'The Reliability of the Gospels', he called as his 'expert witnesses' Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and Sir Oliver Lodge (scientists), Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill (philosophers), and Sir Walter Scott (the novelist and poet).[55] Most of North's sermons were generously flavoured with quotations and references to history, science, literature and current events. The secret was that he not only read very extensively, like many of his contemporaries, but he also maintained an excellent filing system to arrange and store the fruit of his reading.[56] That system took the form of multiple, carefully indexed exercise books, which you can find in the Baptist archive at Carey.
So North aspired to be a scientist in the way he presented the gospel, but he also saw himself as an artist.[57] He often used contemporary imagery and metaphors to connect biblical truth with everyday life. In February 1916, for instance, he preached at the opening of Timaru Baptist Church. The title of his sermon was 'Belong where you Believe'. In the context of the First World War, North deployed a military image to make his case: "The different Churches are like different regiments in the King's army. All the regiments carry the King's colours, which are identical. They also carry the regimental colours, which differ. And they all, with faces set like flints, confront the common foe...A soldier cannot skip from artillery to cavalry, and thence into the engineers at his sweet will. He must belong where he believes he is most effective. And so must it be with the Churches."[58]
In 1932, in the dark days of the Great Depression, he introduced a sermon on the 'Splendours and Powers of the Christian Religion' with these words: "The world to-day is full of frozen assets. It cannot cash its wealth. Men are in poverty who on paper are worth thousands. Their assets are frozen into factories whose wheels will not turn or into land which nobody will buy. Is the Church in that state? Are these ideas, and is this Gospel a frozen asset? It has the sound of the incredibly rich. But can the wealth be released? Can Christ do the things that are waiting to be done now in this actual world of ours?"[59]
So, in his presentation or method of communication, North aimed to be both a scientist and an artist. He was also, finally, an entrepreneur. In a fascinating paper on 'Church Methods in Relation to Modern Need', he argued from the Bible and history that God's people have always adjusted their methods of communication to match their context: We must, he said, "subject our methods to constant revision. We must think fiercely about them. The enterprise of commerce must invade the Church."[60] In other words, churches needed to be innovative in their attempts to reach the masses.
North was. Every year, he tried something new. In Oamaru, he organized open-air meetings in public gardens on subjects like 'Why the World is so Beautiful.'[61] In Wellington, he introduced after-service men's meetings for 'frank discussion' of the sermon. In Christchurch, he used a Magnavox (a newly invented moving-coil loudspeaker) to address the crowds thronging in Cathedral Square and entice them into the evening service in a rented picture theatre where items by a special 100-voice choir supported the message North preached.[62] While the communication techniques of evangelicals around the world have often been characterized by innovation, North's entrepreneurial flair set him apart from most of his Baptist contemporaries.
Of course, J.J. North was more than a preacher. He was, among other things, a social reformer, a journal editor, a college principal and a denominational leader. But I think we need to recognize that his leadership and influence in these areas were profoundly rooted in his preaching – preaching that was marked by a complex engagement with modernity. As an evangelical, his sermons were shaped by a high regard for the inspiration and authority of the Bible, a strong focus on the crucifixion of Christ, and a passionate commitment to personal conversion. However, North's determination to relate the gospel to the issues and thought forms of the day also led him to engage with scientific developments and wrestle with social and political problems, such as those relating to gambling, poverty, and war. While on occasion, this meant sharp conflict with the world, it also often meant close collaboration. Such collaboration was particularly evident in the way North drew on contemporary cultural authorities to support his claims and utilized innovative methods to broadcast his message.
In his study on the church in post-1960s New Zealand, Kevin Ward observes that the "churches which are most likely to have experienced growth in New Zealand since 1960 are those which have combined a strong adherence to the basic tenets of orthodox Christian belief with an ability to adapt their life and message to forms that relate effectively to the rapidly changing social and cultural context in which they exist."[63] North's ministry occurred in an earlier era, but his success as a preacher was built on a successful combination of similar factors. His preaching ministry was marked by a deep desire to be both faithful to the biblical text and attentive to his cultural context. This commitment to earthing the ancient word in the modern world goes some way to explaining why he was such an effective preacher and such an influential leader.
Endnotes
[1]New Zealand Baptist (NZB), February 1919, p.24.
[2] E.W. Batts and A.H. MacLeod, J.J. North: The Story of a Great New Zealander, Wellington, 1965, p.9; NZB, August 1950, p.235.
[3] His previous pastorates were at Spreydon in Christchurch (1895–1903) and Oamaru (1903–1905).
[4] NZB, December 1945, p.304.
[5] Martin Sutherland, ‘The N.Z. Baptist as an Agent of Denominational Identity 1874–1960’, Pacific Journal of Baptist Research (PJBR), 3, 1 (2007), pp.23–40.
[6] J.E. Simpson, ‘John J. North, D.D’, in ‘New Zealand Baptist Theological College Sixtieth Jubilee 1926–1986: Essays on the Contribution of Full-Time teaching Staff to the Life of the College’, n.p., 1986, p.5, New Zealand Baptist Research and Historical Society Archives (NZBRHSA).
[7] See John Tucker, A Braided River: New Zealand Baptists and Public Issues 1882–2000, Bern, 2013.
[8] NZB, May 1911, p.84.
[9] NZB, November 1920, p.171.
[10] NZB, November 1933, p.333.
[11] NZB, August 1950, pp.235–6.
[12] NZB, July 1933, p.205.
[13] NZB, February 1919, p.25.
[14] NZB, November 1906, p.24.
[15] David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s, Grand Rapids, 1992, pp.3–16.
[16] Batts and MacLeod, p.70.
[17] G.T. Beilby, L.A. North: The Man and His Memoirs, Wellington, 1983, p.111.
[18] NZB, September 1930, p.282; NZB, June 1943, pp.126–7.
[19] NZB, April 1931, p.103.
[20] NZB, March 1927, pp.80–81.
[21] NZB, June 1929, p.172.
[22] NZB, June 1943, pp.126–7.
[23] NZB, June 1910, pp.108–9.
[24] NZB, February 1921, p.18.
[25] NZB, October 1936, p.309.
[26] NZB, November 1932, p.353.
[27] NZB, November 1932, p.353.
[28] NZB, April 1926, p.98.
[29] Batts and MacLeod, p.41.
[30] NZB, November 1927, p.330.
[31] Sutherland, ‘“Baptist and Evangelical”: Changing Perceptions of Being Evangelical among New Zealand Baptists, 1926–1946’, in Tim Meadowcroft and Myk Habets, eds, Gospel, Truth & Interpretation: Evangelical Identity in Aotearoa New Zealand, Auckland, 2011, p.75.
[32] See, for example, David O. Moberg, The Great Reversal: Evangelism Versus Social Concern, Malta, 1973, pp.30–38; David Bebbington, ‘The Decline and Resurgence of Evangelical Social Concern 1918–1980’, in John Wolffe, ed., Evangelical Faith and Public Zeal: Evangelicals and Society in Britain 1780–1980, London, 1995, pp.177–82; John C. Green, ‘Seeking a Place: Evangelical Protestants and Public Engagement in the Twentieth Century’, in Ronald J. Sider and Diane Knippers, eds, Toward an Evangelical Public Policy: Political Strategies for the Health of the Nation, Grand Rapids, 2005, pp.18–19.
[33] Pound, pp.43–46.
[34] NZB, January 1902, p.2.
[35] Press, 26 June 1916; NZB, March 1913, p.47.
[36] James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000, Auckland, 2001, p.101.
[37] Archibald Baxter, We Will Not Cease, London, 1939, pp.127–8.
[38] Ibid., pp.105–7. See David Grant, Field Punishment No. 1: Archibald Baxter, Mark Briggs and New Zealand’s Anti-Militarist Tradition, Wellington, 2008.
[39] NZB, September 1917, p.130.
[40] Nelson Evening Mail, 1 November 1907.
[41] David Bebbington, ‘Evangelicals, Theology and Social Transformation’, in David Hilborn, ed., Movement for Change: Evangelical Perspectives on Social Transformation, Carlisle, 2004, p.10.
[42] J.J. North, Roman Catholicism: Roots and Fruits, Napier, 1922, p.146.
[43] North, Roman Catholicism, p.148.
[44] David Grant, On a Roll: A History of Gambling and Lotteries in New Zealand, Wellington, 1994, p.79.
[45] Batts and MacLeod, p.74.
[46] Bebbington, ‘Evangelicals, Theology and Social Transformation’, p.10.
[47] J.J. North, ‘Vision in Relation to a City’s morals’, sermon preached in the Wellington Baptist Church on 8 July 1906, North papers, NZBRHSA.
[48] NZB, May 1937, p.139.
[49] New Zealand Truth (NZT), 13 August 1910.
[50] NZT, 6 May 1911.
[51] NZT, 2 May 1908.
[52] NZB, January 1902, p.3.
[53] NZB, January, 1897, p.2.
[54] ‘The Evolution of Man: Science in Agreement with St Paul’, NZB, May 1906, pp.287–88.
[55] The Reliability of the Gospels: A Sermon Preached in Wellington Baptist Church on Sunday Evening, 22 July, 1906, Wellington, 1906, North papers, NZBRHSA.
[56] NZB, June 1898, pp.82–83.
[57] NZB, October 1936, p.309.
[58] NZB, February 1916, p.31.
[59] NZB, November 1932, p.352.
[60] NZB, January 1902, p.5.
[61] Batts and MacLeod, p.34.
[62] NZB, May 1924, p.107.
[63] Kevin Ward, The Church in Post-Sixties New Zealand: Decline, Growth and Change, Auckland, 2013, p.53.
Image: John James North. S P Andrew Ltd :Portrait negatives. Ref: 1/1-018589-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand /records/23136569
