Techno-Ecumenism

Robert Wuthnow points out (Boundless Faith, 115-6) that improvements in technology enabled leaders to transcend denominational boundaries:

“Communication and travel increased the opportunities to organize transnational ministries in new ways, just as philanthropy and fund-raising techniques did. The earlier denominational boards depended on corresponding secretaries to stay in contact with missionaries and on the relative proximity of congregations and regular contacts among clergy to solicit money and new recruits. By the end of the nineteenth century, leaders like [Arthur Tappan] Pierson and [Dwight] Moody were able to cross the Atlantic on steamers in relative comfort and travel by train to Chicago or California for conventions and revivals. Urban density and public transportation may have been even more important to the success of ministries that transcended denominations. Whereas the revivals of the 1830s had typically been held in small towns and open fields, Moody’s took place in New York, London, Chicago, and other large cities. At the Chicago World Exhibition in 1893, more than 130,000 people heard him speak in a single day.”

Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others found themselves in a single audience listening to Moody because they could all hop a tram to central Chicago.