Dwight L. Moody: 19th c. Evangelist Issue 25 | 1990

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Both Calvinists and Arminians cooperated with him in his meetings, although neither camp was entirely comfortable with his views. Moody had been profoundly affected by both the Arminianizing trends of North American evangelicalism and the more Calvinistic views of British evangelicals.

Arminians were ill at ease with Moody’s “once in grace, always in grace” views, and they were not happy with Moody’s statements about election. But Calvinists felt uncomfortable with Moody’s evangelistic emphasis on human responsibility to believe and the universal provision and offer of salvation. In Moody’s words, “I don’t try to reconcile God’s sovereignty and man’s free agency.”

Moody believed that the Holy Spirit established a permanent relationship with the believer at the moment of regeneration. Nevertheless, he believed that something more was needed for effective Christian work. That “something more” was the “Holy Spirit upon us for service.” He had such an experience himself in 1871, and on those rare occasions when he referred to it, he spoke of it as a filling, a baptism, an anointing, an empowerment for service. However Moody disavowed that such an experience led to entire sanctification, eradication of the sin nature, or perfection.

No. Moody seldom mentioned the subject; when he did, he never did so in a way suggesting sympathy with the practice or the belief.

Moody was clearly a premillennialist; in fact, he was the first premillennial evangelist of note in North American history (the ...