Fight for the Faith and Freedom: George Jeffreys, The Revivalist and Reformer of Today (Pentecostal Pioneers) by Noel Brooks

Author:Noel Brooks [Brooks, Noel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Revival Library
Published: 2014-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter VIII. Issues

“Reform seems always to run along much the same lines. Some grave moral evil continues for generations unchecked, uncensured. Then some clear-sighted man recognises its true wickedness. He denounces it, and is himself denounced as a knave, a fool, an enemy of society. He is persecuted, his persecution taking various forms from burning and crucifixion to black-balling at the club and social ostracism, according to the manners of the place and age. But the reformer persists and gathers a following. Defenders of the abuse change their tone. They admit the evil but deny that it is as bad as it is described. Regulation, reform rather than total abolition, are, they declare, the right thing. The time for any drastic change is not ripe. But the reform party, steadily gathering strength, will not be denied. Victory comes, often with startling suddenness. Then the opponents of reform declare that no sane man ever doubted the evil or denied the abuse, and that reform would have come much sooner than it did if it had not been for the intemperate language and rash violence of a few hot-headed cranks. But the reformers do not trouble, for they are already at work on the next stage of moral progress.”—“The Problem of Right Conduct,” pp. 167-168, Canon Peter Green.

On December 1st, 1939, George Jeffreys resigned from the Elim Movement. Naturally, such a calamity shook Elim to its foundations and compelled the Executive Council to make some move towards rapprochement.

Their report of the critical Conference, sent to the ministers, with a covering letter, is indicative both of their panic and of the policy of secrecy to which they had become habituated. It read: “Principal George Jeffreys, who for some time has intimated his desire along these lines, has resigned from the Executive Council and is thus released from the business side of the work. This will free him more fully for his spiritual ministry in the work of the Lord which God has so signally blessed in the past.”

In his covering letter the Secretary-General asked the ministers to read the report to the churches on the following Sunday, and said: “If you are asked about the Principal’s position, it will be best for you to say that he hopes to be free for meetings in our churches, but that it is not yet decided what office he will take. Please do not enter into any discussion with anybody in the matter.”

Is it to be wondered at that some ministers refused to read that report to their churches, knowing that it conveyed a complete distortion of the truth? George Jeffreys had resigned, not only from the Executive Council, and not merely that he might be free from the business side of the work, but from the entire Elim Movement, because the Conference had sought to block his efforts to reform the Movement in accordance with the new ideal which had been revealed to him.

It was true, as we have pointed out, that he had kept

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