(Since PBS doesn't like putting their content on YouTube.com for free, here is a link to the video on the PBS website.)
One of the most popular sermons of the late D. James Kennedy, one of the bright and shining stars of the Evangelical World, was one entitled "The Secret of Commitment." This piece chronicled the testimony of David Livingstone, and used him as an example of unwavering commitment to the missionary cause. It is not necessary to observe that the accounts given by this PBS documentary and Dr. Kennedy are at variance.
Although no one would have know since the death of Livingstone how far he had been pushed by cruel necessity to use sharp and brutal means to achieve his ends, the fact that he made only one convert in his missionary career spanning over three decades has been very well known since the Victorian Era. Kennedy was either very ignorant of the biography of Livingstone or willfully chose to not present an accurate picture. Either way He misrepresented Livingstone to move his congregation.
In a recent article reviewing Heaven is for Real, I made the hyperbolic comment that using the accepted techniques of Evangelical Testimonies even Joseph Stalin could be made to appear a passionate and saintly Evangelical. D. James Kennedy proved my point with Livingstone. Whether one approves or disapproves, Livingstone was a Victorian colonialist and explorer and had world view of a 19th Century colonialist and an explorer, not a 20th Century American Evangelical.
There is nothing wrong with being inspired by heroes of the past. They can guide our lives and give us standards by which to judge ourselves and our era. However, all great men and women of the past were flesh and blood and possessed all the vices innate to humanity. That must be recognized and accepted. Only legends and myths are perfect, and when people believe that other human beings who lived in this world once achieved perfection they delude themselves into believing that they can achieve perfection. That along with other things in Evangelicalism is "pie in the sky."
D. James Kennedy's sermon "The Secret of Commitment" can be found here. I would encourage anyone really interested in the life and times of David Livingstone to listen.
