Quiet Evangelist

Although the Reverend Kenneth F. W. Prior calls his preaching evangelism, the quiet religious spirit of this witty Englishman is far removed from the frantic dogmatism of Bible Belt fundamentalism. Visiting for a week under the auspices of the Harvard Christian Fellowship, he is not trying to gain 'converts' but rather to stir apathetic students to inquire into their religious-or atheistic-beliefs. He feels American and British "come from the same stock and tend to be slow-moving," and thinks they need prodding.

Now in his middle 30's, Prior has already had a varied career. He studied several languages in secondary school, went on to chemistry, then to classical Greek and psychology, and eventually the ministry of the Church of England. He was curate first in Barnet, a London working class district and later in a South England middle class area, Eastbourne. When he next went as vicar to St. Paul's Church, Onslow Square, London, he at first found only 25 people in the parish and faced demolition of the church; now after seven years 500 pack the services each Sunday. 90 per cent of his parishioners are under 30.

Ministering to a parish with a constantly shifting population-all new middle class transients-resembles "riding a bicycle on a moving belt." There is the problem of bringing new people into the church constantly.

According to Prior, the Church of England "hardly touches what we know as the working class," and this social gap has strong political overtones; he says that the gape came about largely because the Church in the beginning of this century refused to work for the social justice of the working class and instead turned to more condescending charity. No amount of soup kitchens and psalms, "nothing short of a real spiritual revival," could bring social unity to the church.

Prior gives similar lectures and 'missions' in Oxford, Cambridge and other British universities, and says that students find an appeal in his campaign on the Bible as servative, as well as educated. Unlike in the last century, British evangelism has become purely a middle class, es- an authority. Protestant liberalism, he claims, is dying out, and those now drawn to the Church are religiously con-pecially since Billy Graham made the blunder of alienating English workers by inveighing against socialism in one of his visits.

Prior's view of the Bible, which has so taken hold among English students in both conservative and controversial, both an appeal to authority and an appeal to reason. He states that the Gospels are "substantially reliable" and can be studied "just like any other literacy documents... You must begin with the historical facts you can establish," and since the human mind can do nothing of the kind in respect to a supernatural God, belief must begin with the acceptance of those statements of Christ which we can accept as historical facts.

Prior lays heavy emphasis on this intervention of Christ into the historical world as the key to Christianity truth and to belief in it. "For either" he reasons, "Christ was far more than a good man or else he was a deceiver." He does not demand dogmatic acceptance of his listeners. He challenges them: "are you honest inquirers?"

This restrained, reasoned challenge of Prior's conversations and lectures commands remarkable attention, for his sharp angular features and high, yet ever controlled voice communicate the message in a direct, compelling fashion that even those in complete disagreement must respect. You won't find a 300-voice choir or mass conversions at his lectures in Agassiz this week, but you will encounter an evangelism that is forthright and intellectually honest, rare attractions in the circus world of American evangelism.