Doctor of Souls: Leslie Dixon Weatherhead • Hardback • Paperback
By John C. Travell

Author's Conclusion

For fifty years, from the mid 1920s to the end of his life in 1976, Leslie Weatherhead attracted publicity and comment. His extraordinary success in drawing large crowds to hear him whenever he preached or spoke aroused a curiosity which led to many published articles describing his personality and style and attempting to analyse his ‘secret.’ I have made use of these throughout since they show how his contemporaries saw him, and provide the most accurate record of the impression he made on them.

The approach of this study is chronological rather than thematic, since this shows how Weatherhead’s ministry developed from his background in a nineteenth-century Wesleyan Methodist family and was influenced by his interest in psychology and healing, and his experiences in India and in two world wars. He had an extraordinary ability to sense and respond to the concerns of ordinary people and to changing social attitudes, especially as these were affected by the ‘new psychology’ (of which he was an influential populariser) and the widespread doubt and disillusionment with religion which followed the First World War.

Leslie Weatherhead stood in the tradition of the Free Church, and especially Methodist ministry, in which preaching was at the centre of worship. This was a consequence of the Protestant Reformation when the authority of the Holy Catholic Church was replaced by that of Holy Scripture as the revealed Word of God. The development of critical scholarship during the nineteenth century, which cast doubt on the literal interpretation of the Bible as a basis for Christian truth, served to undermine the authority of the pulpit, which was further challenged by the mistrust of the claims of authority following the First World War.

The search for a reliable source of Christian truth led to a new interest in the historical Jesus, with books like Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1910), Fosdick’s The Manhood of the Master (1914) and Glover’s The Jesus of History (1917) - books which were cherished by Weatherhead, who turned for authority to the person of Jesus as the one whose life most truly revealed God, and provided a standard and guide for human life. Weatherhead frequently said that the Bible (and by implication, all other claims to religious truth and moral authority) should be judged by Jesus and not Jesus by the Bible. As a result, his use of the Bible was selective. Even words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament could be discounted if they did not accord with the character of Jesus as Weatherhead understood it. He did not, for example, believe that Jesus ever said what St. John’s Gospel (chapter 14 verse 6) reports him as saying, ‘no one comes to the Father except by me.’ In books such as The Transforming Friendship (1928), Jesus and Ourselves (1930) and His Life and Ours (1932) he presented a romanticised, even a Boys Own Paper picture of Jesus as a great captain, hero and leader, who called his followers to adventure, and was available to every individual as guide, companion and friend.

Weatherhead coupled this presentation of Jesus as the source of Christian truth with the assertion that truth had to be perceived, not merely received. All truth that mattered had to be recognised at first-hand. No statement of doctrine by Pope or preacher needed to be believed or accepted as true unless the individual ‘felt it in his ductless glands.’ Weatherhead therefore set aside the authority of both Church and Bible, freeing himself to preach ideas from any source which were attractive and convincing to him, measured only by his understanding of the truth as he interpreted it in the life and and personality of Jesus. His book, After Death (1923) led to his arraignment for heresy before the Methodist Conference. Although he was acquitted, he was frequently accused of not conforming to Methodist doctrine. Unlike W.E. Sangster, he rarely preached doctrinal sermons, and when he became minister of the Congregational City Temple, had no obligation to do so. His oft repeated statement that ‘no-one was ever converted by a sermon on the Trinity’ indicates his preaching aims as well as his theological limitations.

Weatherhead’s insistence on the right of people to think for themselves and only to accept as true those things which they found convincing was liberating to those who flocked to hear him and was a major part of his appeal, since it freed them from the necessity to accept everything the Church taught, regardless of their difficulties and doubts. But Weatherhead’s approach could seem dangerously subjective, as became evident in his last major work, The Christian Agnostic (1965). This reveals his attitude to truth and authority at its most uninhibited.

The reactions of the orthodox to After Death also made Weatherhead less impressed with academic theology. He concluded that the theologians were always fifty years behind the poets, and that they did not deal with the problems which worried ordinary people. (He was delighted when I sent him Stevie Smith’s poem, ‘How do you see?’, published in the Guardian (16 May 1964) which he quotes appreciatively in The Christian Agnostic [pp.70, 244, 249] as it expressed his own frustration with Christianity’s unanswered questions.) Thereafter he was less interested in what contemporary theologians were saying. In The Christian Agnostic, while he quotes many authorities in support of his views, he offers few theological guides to his readers other than himself. As a preacher, he was more interested in the lives of Christians than in their theology: it was the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s courage in opposing Hitler rather than his Christology that appealed to him.

Weatherhead belonged to a liberal tradition which he continued to preach successfully long after it was generally considered outmoded. In his book, The Living of These Days (1957), H.E. Fosdick, the foremost exponent of this tradition in America, and an important influence on Weatherhead, accepted the criticisms of this theology that:

'There were distortions of perspective, lack of depth, oversimplification, too complaisant optimism, too easy surrender to current categories of modern thought.' [p.66]

Weatherhead’s preaching was not immune from these defects, but Fosdick’s defence of liberalism also applies:

'Of course it left out dimensions in Christian faith which would need to be rediscovered! Despite that, however, it offered to a generation of earnest youth the only chance they had to be honest while being Christian . . . the revolt . . . was in the interest of a deeper, more vital, more transforming Christian experience than literalism, legalism and authoritarianism could supply.' [ibid]

During the first half of this century, serious Bible study lapsed in many churches. Weatherhead most often preached on a biblical theme, but his approach was imaginative and inspirational rather than academic. The questions discussed at the Friday Fellowship and Community Evening groups at the City Temple reflected Weatherhead’s own preoccupations, and were mainly to do with intellectual difficulties of belief and problems of Christian living, with almost no Bible study.

Weatherhead’s appeal was mainly to intelligent office workers, students, teachers, nurses and professional people, although there were some working-class members in his churches and he was proud of the wide social mix of his congregations. He was not primarily concerned with social justice, the inequalities in society, or with poverty and homelessness, although he did care about these things. He was more concerned with the practical problems of individuals, their psychological adjustments, relationships, ability to cope with suffering and tragedy, their perplexities over the meaning of life, their anxieties and aims, their religious questions and doubts and their relationship with God. He sought to give rational, ‘common sense’ answers to difficulties of belief, and to remove obstacles and obscurity. He attacked orthodoxy, ancient creeds and biblical fundamentalism which he believed put unnecessary difficulties in the way of belief, and he aroused hostility and criticism from those for whom these things were precious.

His writing about psychology, and particularly The Mastery of Sex Through Psychology and Religion (1931), which gained him a world-wide reputation, also offended more conservative Christians. His use of hypnotism, his interest in spiritualism and psychic research, in unorthodox methods of healing and in euthanasia and reincarnation made him appear eccentric, and even gullible, and made his judgment suspect to many. In the 1960s, his ‘Nation in Danger’ speeches and articles attracted some ridicule, particularly as some of his statistics and stories of teenage sexual behaviour were of doubtful origin.

His most significant work, Psychology, Religion and Healing (1951), established his reputation as perhaps the world’s foremost authority on all non-physical methods of healing, and played a considerable part in the revival of the healing ministry in churches of all denominations. Although his theology was criticised and his arguments from the evidence of spiritualism and the paranormal were not acceptable to many, the book was acknowledged as a seminal work, the most authoritative and comprehensive yet produced, and became an essential study for those interested in this field for the next thirty years.

His last major work, The Christian Agnostic, attracted some of the most serious criticism and sharply divided his critics from his admirers. The book was intended to encourage those with doubts about religion to follow their own insights in arriving at religious truth. In doing so he presented his own ideas and speculations which took little account of current trends in theology or of the leading contemporary theologians. In 1977, Professor William Strawson, in a lecture on ‘The Significance of the Rev. Dr. Leslie Dixon Weatherhead as a Preacher’, criticised the book as failing to achieve its objects because it was aimed at the wrong questions, and answered the difficulties felt acutely in the pre-war and immediate post-war period, which were no longer real issues. Academic theology had moved on to other matters, as shown by Honest to God. But if Weatherhead appeared out of touch with the universities, he still knew his own readers. His book was (as another critic described it) ‘a genuine lay theology’, and was welcomed as such by those who bought it in considerable numbers and who continue to do so (it remains in print); and it appears to have a fresh relevance in the eyes of the ‘new age’ seekers after religious truth.

Although he came from a structured and hierarchical church tradition, Weatherhead cannot be fitted easily into the picture of the mainstream churches during the decades in which he was active. When churches in general were losing their congregations, he continued to draw large crowds. He was a superb communicator, with an exceptional personality, and like Spurgeon and Parker, attracted some to hear him who were more interested in the style than the content of his preaching. Apart from his year as President of the Methodist Conference he held no administrative office, and was not involved in church politics. He pursued his interests in psychology and Christian healing in the main independently of official church bodies. He took a keen interest in Church unity, and often spoke in favour of it, but apart from his Presidency, when the Anglican-Methodist Conversations began, played no active part in ecumenical affairs. Theological and denominational differences meant little to him, and he was impatient with debates which attempted to find a consensus on doctrine.

The Methodist historian, Norman Goldhawk, says that traditional Methodist piety was made up of three elements: an urge to holiness, an evangelical missionary impulse, and an adherence to a distinctive church order. For Weatherhead the first of these, influenced by evolutionary theory and the new psychology, became interpreted as ‘the soul’s urge to completeness.’ He was keenly missionary, committed to pressing the claims of Christ at every opportunity. His adherence to Methodism, though strong, was sentimental and fraternal rather than theological and doctrinal. He was less willing than his friend W.E. Sangster to defer to Methodist authorities. Accepting the ministry of the Congregational City Temple led some of his fellow Methodists to accuse him of deserting Methodism, but his church origin was evident in the emotional warmth of his preaching and his emphasis on experience.

Weatherhead’s career was that of an exceptional individual who, although clearly belonging to the Methodist tradition, was unrepresentative of his denomination as a whole. If his critics were many, he also attracted many people of all denominations and none, through the extraordinary appeal of his personality and the persuasive power of his preaching. Especially attractive was the devotional context of the worship he led, which combined dignity and reverence with an atmosphere of warm friendliness and humour, and yet conveyed a powerful sense of spiritual reality. He was exceptionally successful in persuading thousands of the reasonableness of the Christian faith and in influencing many to enter the Christian ministry. Paying tribute to him in an article in the British Weekly (16 September 1965) to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Weatherhead’s ordination, Principal Charles Duthie said:

'In the thirties and again after the Second World War I was often struck by the fact that Leslie Weatherhead’s books figured more prominently than any other man’s in the list given by young men presenting themselves as candidates for the Christian ministry. It was clear that he had helped them decisively on their way.'

When Weatherhead is compared with his contemporaries in the areas in which he was most well-known: in pastoral counselling and psychology with Norman Vincent Peale, Harry Guntrip or J.G. McKenzie; in his contribution to the debate on religion, sex and morals with Maude Royden and Herbert Gray; in his published books of sermons with Fosdick or Sangster; in broadcasting with Dick Sheppard and Donald Soper; in his books on the problem of suffering and pain with C.S. Lewis; in his approach to the difficulties of belief with John Robinson, Nathaniel Micklem or H.A. Williams; in the revival of the Church’s healing ministry, and in the investigation of all non-physical methods of healing, then he is not only being measured with the leading figures in each of these fields, but even when such comparisons are made to his disadvantage, they demonstrate the extraordinary range of his industry and the remarkable scope of his ministry.

The last three decades of this century have seen a sharp decline in the fortunes of all the English Churches, and the Free Churches most of all. Those who began the century full of confidence, numerically strong, with the power to sway governments, are now largely ignored and disregarded by the mass media and treated as of little or no importance in the life of the nation. Mass immigration from Commonwealth countries has brought to England a wider choice of religion. Hinduism, Buddhism, and above all, Islam, have attracted adherents from those who in earlier times would have found their spiritual homes among the churches. There are now more Muslims in England than Methodists. Congregationalism, so strong at the beginning of the century, experienced its greatest loss after the First World War, with the fall of the Liberal Party, with which it was too closely identified. In 1972, two-thirds of the Congregational churches voted to join with the Presbyterians to form the United Reformed Church, which resulted in a new denomination actually smaller than the previous two bodies had been when they were separate. Membership of the URC has fallen steadily ever since. Congregationalism survives mainly in two small bodies, the Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches, and the Congregational Federation. With the death of Lord Soper, who died while this book was being produced, in an age of ‘celebrities’ there is now not a single Free Church personality recognisable to the general public.

After his death Weatherhead became a neglected figure. He was the most widely known, popular and successful preacher of his day, yet no ministerial training colleges in England appear to have recommended him to their students as an example to study and copy. Weatherhead stood outside denominational structures. He was an exceptional individual, whose most distinguished ministry was in an independent, self-governing church which, although it belonged to the Congregational Union (and, after 1972, the URC), he proudly declared to be ‘supra-denominational’. Although, especially during the 1930s and 1940s, he attracted many imitators, the old criticisms of him and his preaching style continued to be made, and even his great popularity was held against him. His use of psychology, his personal anecdotes, his irrepressible sense of humour, his references to sex, the accusation that he over-simplified and sentimentalised the gospel, his dismissal of parts of the Bible as incompatible with the teaching of Jesus, his undogmatic, open-ended attitude to religious truth, did not endear him to those who taught homiletics in theological colleges, in spite of his brilliance as a communicator. The academic revival of evangelical theology and biblical conservatism also meant that there was no place for Weatherhead in such circles. His liberal theology was considered out-moded and out of touch.

This neglect of Weatherhead must also be seen as part of the general loss of faith in preaching which had been taking place over many years, even in the Free Churches. Weatherhead was the supremely successful practitioner of an art form which, by the time he died, had generally lost its appeal. Busy ministers no longer considered several hours each day spent in sermon preparation as the best use of their time. Preaching, no longer regarded as a central act of worship, was discussed only as an out-dated and not very effective method of teaching Christian doctrine. Many within the churches were arguing the case for more modern methods of communication. It was said that the attention span of modern audiences was only a few minutes, and, through the influence of television, was visual rather than verbal. In 1967, a Canadian sociologist, Marshall McLuhan, proclaimed, ‘The medium is the message’. Churches strove to be up-to-date in their attempts to hold and build their congregations. Film and overhead projectors, cassette recordings, flannel graphs, drama, dialogue and discussion were all held to be superior to a man speaking from a pulpit, ‘six feet above contradiction.’ The Free Churches, as they sought the goal of Christian unity, became more sacramental. Holy Communion began to take a more integrated and regular place in worship, and preaching tended to be reduced to a short homily preparing worshippers for the sacrament. In this climate, it is not surprising that Weatherhead’s name was rarely mentioned in theological colleges.

The fortunes of the City Temple have declined. The kind of media interest that reported the appointment of Leonard Griffith or Kenneth Slack to its pulpit has long gone. Even among the Free Churches it is no longer regarded as the most internationally famous and prominent Free Church in the land. From the time of the ministry of Brian Johanson, inducted just four months after Weatherhead’s death, the leadership of the church was steadily taken over by those of a different (and more conservative) theological persuasion, and most of those who had been drawn to the City Temple by Weatherhead’s ministry gradually fell away.

Although Weatherhead’s bust still stands beside that of Joseph Parker in the entrance to the church, ten years after his death, the City Temple was being run by a group of young, earnest evangelicals, with no interest in the history of the church, who actively disapproved of Weatherhead, not only regarding him as a heretic, but even as not a Christian, because of his views on the Virgin Birth, his rejection of substitutionary theories of the Atonement, and his interest in spiritualism. In 1986 they planned a service to mark the first anniversary of the death of the charismatic Anglican, David Watson. When they were approached that same year to hold a similar service of commemoration to mark the tenth anniversary of Weatherhead’s death they refused, saying that the church should be looking to the future and not back at the past. The minister of the Westminster Central Hall, Dr. John Tudor, was more welcoming, and a memorable service and seminar commemorating Weatherhead’s ministry was held there instead.

Happily the situation is changing. The present incumbent of the City Temple, Dr. David Hilborn, a conservative evangelical but also an historian, is more sympathetic and ready to acknowledge Weatherhead’s achievements and the debt that the church owes to him. In September 1997, on the initiative of a former consultant of the Psychological Clinic, Dr. David Common, the City Temple hosted a well attended and very successful conference with the theme: 'Leslie Weatherhead: A Voice for Today?'

In the United States of America Weatherhead has continued to be appreciated, even in academic circles (perhaps because success is more admired there), and been the subject of some post-graduate research. As early as 1959, Harry Alonzo Shuster presented a dissertation to the Temple University, Philadelphia with the title: ‘Preaching to meet human needs: a study of the sermons of Dr. Leslie D. Weatherhead.’ This, with Stephen Odum’s 1985 Ph.D. dissertation for the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary: ‘Identification as a Key to Effectiveness in the Preaching of Leslie Weatherhead’ indicates a desire to understand the reason for his remarkable popularity and to learn from it. A black American theologian, Henry H. Mitchell, in a book calling for The Recovery of Preaching published in America in 1977, argues the case for the effective use of imagination in the interpretation of Bible stories, and gives particular praise to Weatherhead’s Personalities of the Passion saying that more such books are needed.

Popular culture has now come to accept to a remarkable extent many of the things which interested Weatherhead but which in his day were regarded as peculiar and strange. This is particularly so with what is now known as ‘alternative’ or ‘complimentary’ medicine. Unorthodox practitioners have established clinics for an extraordinary range of therapies and treatments in every town. In 1993, Exeter University appointed the first Professor of Complimentary Medicine, and the Guardian reported (21 July 1998) that according to surveys, up to 40% of G.P.s are happy to refer patients to complimentary therapists. The concept of ‘holistic’ medicine – treating the patient as a whole personality - which Weatherhead argued for and sought to establish in his City Temple Psychological Clinic, is now generally accepted. Healing services with intercessory prayers for individuals and the laying on of hands are now part of the regular pastoral ministry of many churches in all denominations.

It is tempting to speculate how Weatherhead might have related to the religious scene as it is in the closing years of the twentieth century. He would welcome the new interest in preaching demonstrated by the ‘Preacher of the Year’ competition. He would have rejoiced at the modern charismatic movement’s ability to attract young people, and that it shares his belief that at the heart of Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ - although neither its music nor its conservative theology would have been to his taste. There can be little doubt that he would have been much more in tune with the current religious trends in society outside the mainstream churches than most of the clergy are today. He was always eager to enter into discussion with members of other faiths and would have responded to the challenge of their presence in such numbers in this country, and welcomed the religious insights they have brought with them, while welcoming every opportunity to press the claims of Christ to them. All his life he attacked religious fundamentalism, and would have been greatly concerned about its current revival in all religions, regarding it as the greatest obstacle to progress in the exploration of religious truth. He would have recognised the growth of interest in the supernatural, as indicated by the popularity and number of television programmes devoted to the subject, and continued to press for psychic phenomena to be taken seriously, and for rigorous scientific testing of the evidence. As a psychologist as well as a minister he would have been fascinated by the search for spiritual enlightenment of those involved in all the different manifestations of the ‘new age’ movement. He always encouraged individuals to explore religious ideas for themselves, and only to accept as true what they found perosnally convincing. The Christian Agnostic is evidence that he would have been well equipped and ready to engage with tolerance, understanding and sympathy in dialogue with these ‘new age’ seekers after religious truth.

In an article for the Expository Times (April 1995) Martin Camroux says,

'Growing up in a liberal Congregational Church in the late 1950s Leslie Weatherhead seemed an awesome figure. People bought his books, talked of the occasions when they had heard him preach, and frequently re-used his sermons and illustrations. What Fosdick was to America, Weatherhead was to England'.

In her researches into Weatherhead’s ministry and influence, Lynne Price found that,

'mention of Weatherhead’s name to a variety of Christians of all ages and denominations, and also non-church attenders, met with recognition, affirmation and, often, enthusiasm. They knew people who had been helped by his psychological counselling, had read The Christian Agnostic and continued on their Christian journeys, or had been helped to make important life decisions through hearing his broadcast talks'.

This has been my experience also. I began my own research out of a deep sense of gratitude and obligation to Leslie Weatherhead for his personal kindness to me, and for his ministry, which has been one of the major influences on my life. It has been a considerable joy to recall those crowded, deeply moving and inspiring services at Marylebone and Holborn Viaduct, to be in touch again with old City Temple friends and acquaintances, and to relive with them the precious memories we share. My appreciation of his remarkable ministry and admiration for his achievements has been greatly increased through the letters I have received from all over the world from so many people eager to seize the opportunity to tell how much this man meant to them. Through him, countless numbers have been encouraged and liberated to explore the ultimate truths of religion, to discover the practical realism of the Christian faith in their daily lives and, most precious of all, to know the ‘transforming friendship’ of Jesus Christ for themselves.