Patterson: Elder Richards, as you remember or remember hearing from your father, what themes characterized the preaching of Mrs. White and the early pioneers?
Richards: My father was one of the youngest men involved in the 1888 movement, but he wasn't there at Minneapolis. Sister White, E. J. Waggoner, and A. T. Jones traveled all over the country together, visiting camp meetings for several years; so in this way my father became deeply influenced by it. The General Conference made it possible for every man who could be spared from the conferences to come to Battle Creek for a winter Bible school, held in the Battle Creek Tabernacle and taught by Sister White, Waggoner, Jones, W. W. Prescott, and Uriah Smith. They also preached on the prophecies.
Patterson: That was quite a group.
Richards: Yes, it was. Father told me that 45-minute classes would last maybe three to four hours because a revival would break out in the class. Sometimes the teacher, but usually the students, would begin to confess their sins. So there was continuous revival all that winter.
Out of that, my father—so I heard it from the beginning—preached always on truly evangelical themes from the Bible. We had that as a family tradition. But I believed as a young preacher, and even down to this day, that many of our evangelistic campaigns have very little to do with the gospel. Men preach only our particular truths.
Patterson: So they become doctrinarian in a sense?
Richards: That's right. Now I can see how this naturally came about, because in the early days of our world movement most people were Christians. They had the gospel and they taught it Methodists, Baptists, all of them. All you had to do was convince a person on the Sabbath and a few other things, and he made a good Seventh-day Adventist.
Patterson: Was the appeal largely to the evangelical group?
Richards: I think so. And unfortunately we continued to do this. But the world has changed completely; it has walked away from the gospel until the whole philosophical background today is non- Christian at least, and sometimes anti- Christian. Our men, instead of going out with this wonderful, powerful wrap on the true gospel of Christ that the Holy Ghost can bless have gone out and used a list of topics like "Will Russia Rule the World?" and "Is Europe Going to Do This and That?" It draws attention, but it doesn't have the power and it doesn't change people as they ought to be changed.
Patterson: So you think now we are ad dressing an entirely different audience?
Richards: Yes, so it is about time we talked in a different way and brought the gospel into everything. Sister White urged over and over that Christ be brought into our preaching.
Patterson: What preaching style did they use in those days?
Richards: Men differed then just like they do now. Not in doctrine, but in style and caliber. Of course, I know that I am an old man and am apt to look through rosy glasses at the past, but I don't think I do. I don't think we have many men with personalities as interesting and as numerous as our ministers years ago. As in the Old Testament, there were giants in those days.
Of course, I think I see a reason for this. Our organization then was quite primitive; we didn't depend on it, but individuals depended on themselves. If a man proved strong enough to push his way through and become a leading preacher, he had something that many of us today don't have.
To my mind, Brother Everson was the greatest evangelist we ever had. I at tended his tabernacle once in Oakland, California. The tabernacle seated 3,000. Billy Sunday couldn't fill it, but Everson would fill it on the weekends. He never used any pictures or anything like that, but he was great. You couldn't help listening to him.
Patterson: Was he dynamic in his preaching?
Richards: Very dynamic. He had quite long hair, a strange thing in those days. When he would throw his head, that curly hair would shake from one side to the other. He had a dramatic power that would have made him a great actor.
He held the attention of everybody, speaking without notes of any kind. He used a high platform so everybody could see him. It was made of pine boards with no carpet over them, so you could hear every step he took, which helped draw attention.
He was a wonderful man. Young men tried to imitate him, which appeared silly. When you try to imitate someone, you make a fool of yourself usually. We can use others' ideas and plans, but I think God gives us each a unique personality.
Patterson: What was the socioeconomic status of Adventists in the beginning?
Richards: It wasn't very broad. Most of our people were country people—farmers or workers. Those in the cities were manual laborers. We had very few people in the upper class.
Patterson: What was their religious background?
Richards: Most of them had been religious people before becoming Adventists.
Patterson: Any particular denomination?
Richards: Lots of them were Methodists and Baptists. I think we had very few Calvinists (Presbyterians).
Patterson: Basically evangelicals?
Richards: That's right. Our theology has been largely along the Methodist line. One of John Wesley's workers was a Mr. Richards, my great-great-grandfather. He traveled with Wesley as one of his preachers. Wesley actually is my favorite character outside of the Bible. He was a great man, nearer Calvin than most people know. Every Adventist preacher should read Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, because of its clear thinking.
You know, we have focused on our special doctrines until we have some times missed the great fundamental doctrines. Preaching is a proclamation. We are not God's lawyers; we are His witnesses. Sometimes we forget that.
Patterson: Have you seen a change in present-day Adventists as compared to before?
Richards: Yes, of course. Now we are getting more of all classes in our church. We are getting wealthy people, people who belong to the governing class of society. I don't mean officially governing, but people that run businesses, and professors, and all.
Patterson: Did this begin at a specific time, or was it a gradual thing?
Richards: I think it began around the First World War. People everywhere were troubled, and the war opened the door for a wider spectrum of them to become interested in the prophecies—where the world is going. Of course, our people took advantage of this. Elder Daniells went to Europe just when the war started and came back concerned that people ought to know about the prophecies and the situation in the world. But no conference would give him a chance to preach, so he hired the Gerrick Theater in Philadelphia, one of the most prestigious theaters there, and charged people 50 cents a seat, which is the same as two or three dollars now. He filled it completely.
Patterson: As this class change occurred within the church, do you think it necessitated a change in preaching?
Richards: I think our whole problem is to get preachers who are wide awake and able, preachers who will study, preachers who will go to hear good preachers and do something to build up their preaching.
Patterson: You mention going to hear good preachers or studying other preachers. Is there a certain "ingrownness" among us that has made us afraid to do this?
Richards: Yes, I think some of us are afraid to. There are some great preachers in the world, though not so many now as there used to be. We have a dearth of great preaching.
Patterson: What caused that?
Richards: The schools are not producing preachers of the Bible; they are full of skepticism and philosophical attitudes toward the world and religion, which has greatly weakened Bible preaching. A man has got to believe something in order to preach.
Patterson: Have you seen a change in emphasis and topics in Adventist preaching?
Richards: I surely have.
Patterson: From what to what?
Richards: Our preachers are moving more into psychological areas, trying to find a human cure for sickness that can only be cured by divine intervention.
Patterson: Would you say a humanistic trend? Richards: That's right.
Patterson: This is occurring in our church?
Richards: I think so. A lot of our men have turned into mere counselors. Some of them are leaving the ministry and hanging out their shingle.
Patterson: What effect do you see humanistic preaching having on style and topic?
Richards: To me this would make a preacher into more of a professor who has only human, intellectual cures for the world's problems. It leads away from divine revelation. We are getting more and more of this, and nobody is going to hear them. I think preachers ought to be taught by other preachers, successful preachers. It is all right to take a course in philosophy or psychology. Go ahead; the more the better. But most of their teachers should be men who themselves are preaching.
There have been terrible fatalities among graduates of our seminary. Not because they weren't good men or didn't have a good theological education. They just got discouraged, quit, and went into some other business;
They don't know what they are getting into; they have never been trained out in the field, giving Bible studies and preaching. The worst thing you can do is put them in charge of a church, and a little church is worse than a big one,
Patterson: Much harder to pastor?
Richards: Why, sure. The conflicts are there, even with only a few people. He gets into it and gets discouraged, and no wonder. I think the old way was better. I think young fellows should be kept out of the churches and should be put on the firing line.
Patterson: So an internship, you think, should be in evangelism?
Richards: That's right, away from the churches for a while—two or three years. And I think they should work two by two, to encourage each other. Some of those boys, if there had been two of them, might have lived through it. They could weep on each other's shoulder, learn to love each other. One man's strength is the other's weakness. It was that way with me. I am sure I would have become discouraged, but I had a good comrade.
Patterson: Do you see a transition from our early thinking in our organizational approach?
Richards: I think we are moving too fast in that direction. I think we should have at least two seminaries. When the semi nary idea first came up, my dad said, "If we don't have two, we are in trouble. They balance each other that way." I am not against a seminary, but I believe when ministerial students get through college, they should go out for a while, get into the rough and tumble of minis try. Then they can come back and will know more what they want.
I think we need some remodeling or we are going to lose a lot of fellows, which is too bad, because they are fine young men. I am not against study; I believe in it. I never had the privilege of seminary training; I would like to have. But other preachers also never had it and somehow managed.
Patterson: If you gave a prescription for revitalizing Adventist preaching today, what would it be?
Richards: To my mind, the backbone of the church is the evangelistic pastor, not the man who spends his whole time as a flaming evangelist. We have only a few who can do that anyway.
The local pastor is the front-line preacher, but he has to be an evangelistic pastor, winning souls and using the church members as his helpers. Develop evangelistic pastors, men who can take a church and use it as a weapon, as a foundation.
Take Criswell, who I think is the greatest preacher in the world now. He pastors the First Baptist Church in Dallas. He is that kind of man. I heard him lecture on how to build a great church. He said you have to have three things: great preaching, great laymen, and great plans and vision. That is what he has had. He has spent 20 years in that church. Suppose they had taken him away after two years and moved him all around.
Our conferences are very merciful to us. A fellow has only about three or four sermons, so after they have heard them a dozen times each, they move him around to another little place where he can stay awhile until he preaches out.
But those Baptist churches are hard schools. If you don't make it, you are thrown clear out. You don't have a kind committee to push you somewhere else.
Patterson: Would you find an advantage in a little bit more Congregationalism?
Richards: I think without a doubt it would be good for the church. Before Criswell, Truitt was there for 40 years. Criswell doesn't spend time with finance, raising money and everything. He has a finance committee composed of men who have money. They say, "We'll take care of all this. You take three months off and write that book. You travel; go all through Africa this summer, and come back and tell us about it." He keeps growing all the time.
Patterson: There are very few opportunities for anything like that in our system.
Richards: True.
Patterson: In fact, the fellow who does that is looked upon as irresponsible.
Richards: Yes, he is apt to be. Of course, the brethren were good to me. I got to go around the world because I was in radio. It has helped me in every way. Others haven't had this opportunity.
Patterson: You said that a great church is built on great preaching. I am sure you have heard, as I have, that preaching is not our major responsibility. How do we deal with that?
Richards: Well, the men who say that are wrong. You can have all the departments you want, counseling and all the rest—all good. I would not downgrade them, but they do not take the place of preaching.
We live in a time when preaching has reached a low ebb all over the Protestant world. The Reformation was based on great preaching, and so was our work in the beginning. The church that is strongly evangelistic and has good preaching will grow. The one that doesn't won't. It is just that simple.
