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Books & Culture's Book of the Week: Moody, the Media, and the Birth of Modern Evangelism
A cautionary tale.

The death of D. L. Moody in 1899 was a headline story for the American press and the final installment in a 30-year symbiotic relationship between the evangelist and daily newspapers both in America and Great Britain. ...

...Moody and musician Ira Sankey arrived in Britain in 1873, unheralded by the press on either side of the Atlantic. Two years later Moody returned to New York as an international celebrity. With growing expertise in each successive city in Scotland, Ireland, and England, Moody had mastered a technique for drawing crowds by a rational process of uniting Protestants across denominational lines, using saturation publicity in both the secular and religious newspapers. The stir created by this skillful strategy attracted unbelievers who might otherwise never have attended a local church service....

...The nine-week campaign in Philadelphia was a greater success. The city's powerful business establishment—led by John Wanamaker, George Stuart, Anthony Drexel, and Jay Cooke—was firmly behind Moody. Wanamaker had 300 of his department store employees "volunteer" as ushers. Indeed, Wanamaker secretly owned the Grand Depot where the revival was held, and two months after Moody left, converted the tabernacle into a new location for his department store The campaign neatly coincided with the city's centennial, and President Grant and other national political figures attended while in town, further heightening the hype surrounding the revival.

In 1876 Moody went to New York City, transforming the newly bankrupt P. T. Barnum's Hippodrome into a tabernacle for revival. Again the barons of the Gilded Age, this time headed by J. Pierpont Morgan and Cornelius Vanderbilt, underwrote the campaign. Evenson admits their possibly mixed motives for such benefice. "Certainly they hoped for a spiritual revival in their city, and almost as decidedly did they pray that the excitement might overwhelm the public's growing disaffection with national scandal and depression."

Later that same year, Moody returned to Chicago, this time as a prophet with honor in his own land. The Chicago Tribune and rival papers boosted Moody's revival as a point of civic pride. The city, recently devastated by a horrendous fire—which destroyed Moody's first attempt at building a tabernacle—could not be outshone by east coast cities.

When the crowds faltered, Moody devised theme promotions to renew public interest. For instance, there was the special night for "fallen women," intended to attract prostitutes who worked less than a mile away. Evensen is coy about whether this was a crass publicity stunt to increase newspaper coverage, or a sincere outreach to suffering women. Even less clear is what welcome would later await the converts who went to the inquiry room in local churches....

...Moody used the press brilliantly. He placed reporters front and center at a reserved press table complete with inkwells, paper, candles, and press aides to whisper the names of pastors who led prayers. Reporters were even allowed to bring their girlfriends with them to sit in the choice seats. To accommodate the stenographers who struggled to keep up with his machine-gun delivery, Moody slowed his preaching to 220 words per minute. He held afternoon meetings with the press to share anecdotes for the evening press. (A daily schedule of events was an early form of the modern-day press release.) Moody said, "I don't know what will become of me if the newspapers continue to print all of my sermons"—while at the same time making every effort to continue to be front-page news....