What Was Happening in American Christianity When Tozer Wrote The Pursuit of God?

The Pursuit of God appeared in 1948, at a moment when American evangelical Christianity was reorganizing, expanding, and becoming increasingly institutionally ambitious after World War II. New coalitions, seminaries, evangelistic networks, radio ministries, missions efforts, and public-facing evangelical organizations were growing. Tozer’s book came from inside that world, but it also sounded a warning: Christian activity, correct doctrine, and well-built programs could never substitute for personally knowing and worshiping God.

Understanding that setting helps explain why the book feels both evangelical and corrective.

A movement was rebuilding its public identity

The first half of the twentieth century had been marked by conflict between Protestant modernists and fundamentalists. By the 1940s, a number of conservative Protestant leaders wanted to preserve historic Christian doctrine while moving beyond some of fundamentalism’s separatist tendencies.

The National Association of Evangelicals was founded in 1942 as a cooperative evangelical body. Its own history describes the organization as an effort to unify evangelicals and provide an alternative to both theological liberalism and isolation.

Then, in 1947, Fuller Theological Seminary opened. Its founders hoped to strengthen serious evangelical theological education and public engagement.

So when Tozer dated his preface in June 1948, American evangelicalism was not standing still. It was building institutions and seeking wider influence.

Evangelism and missions were expanding

The postwar period also brought renewed energy for evangelism and global missions. Youth movements, radio preaching, Bible conferences, mission organizations, and large evangelistic campaigns were creating new channels for Christian outreach.

Tozer was not opposed to evangelism, missions, preaching, organization, or Bible teaching. He had spent his own ministry within The Christian and Missionary Alliance, a denomination deeply shaped by missions and what it called the deeper Christian life.

His concern was different: What happens when the machinery of religion becomes more visible than the presence of God?

That question is already present in the 1948 preface.

Tozer’s preface is a window into the moment

The preface to The Pursuit of God is one of the most useful documents for understanding his criticism of contemporary Christianity.

Tozer says he sees a growing hunger for God among some conservative Christians. At the same time, he criticizes a form of evangelical life that can become satisfied with correct explanations, programs, and religious activity without corresponding worship, spiritual reality, or personal communion with God.

He does not reject biblical exposition. In fact, he explicitly insists that sound Bible exposition is necessary. His complaint is that correct teaching can be delivered in a way that leaves hearers spiritually unfed when truth never becomes lived fellowship with God.

This is a crucial distinction.

Tozer’s argument is not:

Doctrine is bad; experience is good.

It is closer to:

Biblical truth is meant to bring believers into faithful knowledge, worship, obedience, and communion with the living God.

That is why How Should Readers Test Tozer’s Teachings Against Scripture? is an important companion article. Tozer’s devotional intensity should be read under Scripture, not above it.

Why the language about "programs" matters

Modern readers may assume Tozer was criticizing contemporary megachurches, social media ministries, or modern worship production. He was not. Those developments came later.

His 1948 complaint is historically more interesting: the temptation to substitute organization for spiritual reality was already present before today’s ministry technologies existed.

The forms change. The spiritual danger does not.

A church can have few programs and still be spiritually complacent. Another can have many programs and be deeply prayerful, biblical, humble, and God-centered. Tozer’s target is not a calendar. It is the heart’s capacity to become satisfied with religious means while forgetting their end.

Tozer stood inside the evangelical world he criticized

It would be a mistake to picture Tozer as an outsider throwing stones at evangelical Christianity.

He was a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor. The Alliance’s official history notes that he pastored Southside Alliance Church in Chicago for three decades and later edited Alliance Weekly. The denomination itself combined strong biblical preaching, missionary concern, and an emphasis on deeper life in Christ.

That setting matters. Tozer’s criticism was largely pastoral self-criticism from within conservative Christianity.

He wanted evangelicals to preserve truth while recovering awe.

He wanted Bible teaching to lead to encounter with the God Scripture reveals.

He wanted missions and service to flow from worship rather than replace it.

He wanted Christians to seek God Himself, not merely successful religious outcomes.

For more background on his ministry, see Who Was A. W. Tozer, and Why Did He Write The Pursuit of God?.

How the postwar setting sharpens the book’s message

Several tensions of the late 1940s help explain the book:

1. Institutional growth versus inward life

Evangelicals were building organizations. Tozer asked whether the inner life was growing at the same pace.

2. Doctrinal defense versus personal knowledge of God

Conservative Christians had spent years defending orthodoxy. Tozer asked whether right doctrine was producing right worship, love, obedience, and desire.

3. Public activism versus hidden prayer

The postwar world offered expanding opportunities for public ministry. Tozer consistently emphasized prayer, quietness, self-denial, and hidden communion with God.

4. Religious complexity versus simplicity

Tozer feared that methods and activity could make Christianity feel mechanically complex. He repeatedly calls readers back to the simplicity of seeking God Himself.

What should modern readers avoid?

Historical context should not become a weapon for romanticizing the past.

The 1940s church had its own serious weaknesses. American Christianity in that era included racial segregation, cultural blind spots, denominational rivalry, anti-intellectual tendencies in some circles, and other failures. Tozer’s book does not address every major issue of its time.

Likewise, modern Christians should not assume that everything new is spiritually shallow or everything old is spiritually deep.

The value of the historical context is more focused: it shows that Tozer’s concern about religious activity without spiritual reality was not invented as a reaction to today’s church culture.

Why this matters for reading the book today

When Tozer criticizes "programs," religious busyness, or Christians who know the right answers but lack hunger for God, read those words first in their 1948 setting.

Then ask a contemporary application question:

What are the modern equivalents in my own life?

Perhaps the issue is endless Christian media without prayer.

Perhaps it is Bible study without obedience.

Perhaps it is ministry responsibility without dependence on God.

Perhaps it is theological knowledge without worship.

Perhaps it is church activity without love.

The historical setting protects us from anachronism, but it also allows Tozer’s challenge to land more accurately.