Eugene Visser

03348 The tale of two preachers; J. Frank Norris and George W. Truett

01 March 2012

In the presentation of this paper the author deemed it necessary to present all the facts as revealed to him regarding these two preachers as a matter of interest. This would seem the logical means of investigative journalism. However, of far more consequence and interest would be the method used by these two preachers, since at first they seem diametrically opposed. Based on this analysis, one can then investigate their individual success in terms of church numbers/conversions. Lastly, it would be interesting to analyse their message in comparison with the Adventist message, with the aim of drawing from their success and learning from their failure. It is with this in mind that the author proposes this paper under the following headings: i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. i. Historical Background The tale of two preachers Historical background J. Frank Norris Historical background George W. Truett Method J Frank Norris Method George W. Truett Critique References Historical background, the tale of two preachers, By David R. Stokes[1]

When W.A. Criswella man who would one day become one of America's most successful preacherswas a young boy growing up in the northwest corner of the Texas panhandle, he began to feel stirrings in his soul about the call to the ministry. His parents were conflicted, with mother concerned about the boy's prospects for material success and father determined that if his boy became a preacher, he'd be the "right" kind. Mr. Criswell was a big fan of a preacher often referred to as the "Texas Tornado"J. Frank Norris, pastor of First Baptist Church in Fort Worth. The Mrs? Well, her pulpit cup of tea was George W. Truett of Dallas' First Baptist Church. He was devotional; Norris was dogmatic. Truett was a unifier; Norris was a divider. Both preachers were predominately evangelistic, but their methods and mannerisms were as different as night and day. Today, Dr. Truett is the better remembered of the duo, but this certainly was not the case when the two First Baptist Churches towered over the variants of Texas Baptist life during the first half of the 20th century. Although Truett's legacy is secure, complete with the on-going success of the Dallas church, as well the association of his name with his alma mater, Baylor Universityat times the ghost of J. Frank Norris has haunted the Southern Baptist Convention. For much of the 1920s and 1930s, the Fort Worth church was the larger of the two. In fact, it was in many ways America's first megachurch. Norris' name was better known than Truett's outside of Baptist circles, due largely to his penchant for sensationalism and controversy. After all, a preacher indicted four times by county grand juries during his ministry, once for perjury, twice for arson and once for first-degree murder, with high-profile trials accompanying, would tend to get ample media coverage. Even inside the denominational walls of the Southern Baptist world, Norris' name was as well known as Truett's, though not out of affection. Initially noticed favourably by Truett and other leaders as a 1

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young and upcoming minister, even being given a plum job as editor of the Baptist Standard at the tender age of 30, leaders soon soured on J. Frank. They began to notice the young preacher's apparently unbridled ambition, not to mention his "Haydenite" tendencies. This was a reference to a schismatic group of Southern Baptists in the latter part of the 19th century. It was led by Samuel Hayden and given over to the kind of "watch dog-ism" and divisiveness that later would characterize the emergence of Baptist Fundamentalism in the 1920s. The growth of Fundamentalism in its early days following the end of World War I played out as a veritable tale of two preachers in the Southern Baptist world. Norris became an early champion of the movement, while Truett shied away from its more tenacious tendencies. It was this reluctance by Truett to engage perceived error that provoked J. Frank Norris' wrath. When Norris took on Baylor Universitythe great school where he and Truett had trained for the ministry (though more than 10 years apart) the gloves were off. J. Frank Norris conducted a celebrated witch-hunt of sorts, investigating the faculty of the Baptist school and looking for doctrinal anaemia, especially when it came to the hot-button-issue-of-theday: evolution. This all occurred against that backdrop of the Roaring Twenties, when the issues aired at the Scopes Trial were being debated around the country. Norris was the chief inquisitor, a man who was responsible for many notable faculty resignations at Baylor and elsewhere around the country. Along the way, some of the brethren came up with a little poem, one that would be whispered and laughed at when preachers got together to chew the ecclesiastical fat: "And what to do with Norris, was a question broad and deep. He was too big to banish, and he smelled too bad to keep." It was not at all funny to George W. Truett. It was personal because Norris had made it so. By this time, the Fort Worth preacher had become what has been described as "Truett's chief rival for the soul of Texas Baptistdom." In 1924, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, with the full backing of Dr. Truett, ousted Norris and his church. Norris was waging all-out war against what he sarcastically called "The Baptist Machine." His personal tabloid, the Searchlight, had a circulation of more than 50,000 by this time, and it was common to see Truett and other Baptist leaders described as "infidels" and worse in its headlines and pages. Also around this time, it became part of the job description of deacons at Truett's church to be watchful every Sunday morning, on the lookout for anyone bearing anything resembling a telegram. Norris regularly tried to insert an agent provocateur into the Dallas church crowd, someone who, with the skill of an experienced process server, would get a choicely worded note into Dr. Truett's handone designed to rattle the preacher with words such as: "How can a man like you presume to occupy a Baptist pulpit?" Norris and Truett not only were different outside the pulpit; they were a study in contrast in it, as well. Norris tended to use outrageous and aggressive body language to aid his voice, complete with flailing arms, kicking feet and even tossing the occasional coat to the floor. Truett, on the other hand, let his voice do all the work, one that could, it was said: "leap from a whisper to a shout in the utterance of a syllable." 2

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Norris' ways caught up to him in 1926, at least temporarily, when he shot an unarmed critic to death. The story became national news as Norris faced the Texas electric chair after the biggest and most sensational trial of that decade in a Texas court. Norris was acquitted and resumed his ministry, one that would lead him to pastor two churches, First Baptist in Fort Worth and Temple Baptist in Detroit, Mich., simultaneously for 16 years (19341950), boasting a combined church membership of 25,000. The murder trial rendered him a virtual pariah among Southern Baptists, leading Norris eventually to start his own independent Baptist movement, one that flourished long after his death in 1952. George W. Truett died in July 1944 after a year-long illness. The search for a new pastor for First Baptist in Dallas led them to 34-year-old W.A. Criswell. The new pastorthough this likely was not noticed at the timewas in some ways a composite of Truett and Norris, though certainly without the latter's darker qualities. One day, after Criswell had been filling George W. Truett's shoes for nearly eight years, W.A. glanced out the window of his office and saw an old man sitting there. He buzzed his secretary and asked how long the man had been waiting, "Well, he's been there for quite a while, Dr. Criswell. He looked like a bum to me, and I wasn't sure you'd want to be disturbed," she said. Criswell recognized the old man. He was no bum; it was J. Frank Norris. Dr. Criswell received his visitor, embraced him; and they chatted about life and ministry. Norris died a few days later. ii. Historical background J. Frank Norris[2]

John Franklyn Norris (September 18, 1877 August 20, 1952) was a flamboyant Baptist preacher, one of the most controversial figures in the history of fundamentalism. J. Frank Norris was born in Dadeville, Alabama, but the family shortly moved to Arkansas and then back to Columbiana, Alabama. In the late 1880s, the Norriss bought land near Hubbard, Texas, about thirty miles from Waco, where they farmed. James Warner Norris was an alcoholic, and Frank Norris claimed that his father once severely injured him after he had emptied his liquor bottles. In 1891, both were shot by an acquaintance of Warner Norris, and Frank said he did not fully recuperate for three years. Norris was converted at a Baptist revival meeting in the early 1890s, and in 1897, he became pastor of Mount Antioch Baptist Church, Mount Calm, Texas. The following year he enrolled in Baylor University (1898-1903). He earned a master of theology degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1905, Norris returned to Texas as the pastor of the McKinney Avenue Baptist Church in Dallas, resigning in 1907 to become editor of the Baptist Standard. Norris is credited with ending the Texas Baptist newspaper war, with moving South-western Baptist Theological Seminary from Waco to Fort Worth, and with persuading the state legislature to abolish racetrack gambling. In 1909, Norris sold his interest in the Baptist Standard and accepted the pastorate of the First Baptist Church, Fort Worth, where he served for forty-four years until his death. In 1912, Norris was 3

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acquitted of arson and perjury charges related to fires that respectively destroyed his church auditorium and severely damaged his home. Norris was also the radio pastor of, variously, KFQB, KTAT and then KSAT (not to be confused with KSAT in San Antonio), where he started the first regular radio ministry in the United States in the 1920s. The height of Norris's career came in the 1920s, when he became the leader of the fundamentalist movement in Texas by attacking the teaching of "that hell-born, Bible-destroying, deity-of-Christdenying, German rationalism known as evolution" at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Because of his attacks on Baylor and denominational leaders, Norris and his church were denied seats at the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas in 1922 and 1923. In his 1926 sermon series "Rum and Romanism," Norris attacked H. C. Meacham, the mayor of Fort Worth, accusing him of misappropriating funds for Catholic causes. That same year, Norris was indicted for the murder of lumberman Dexter Elliott Chipps, a friend of Meacham's, in the church office. Norris claimed that Chipps had threatened his life. Norris was acquitted on grounds of selfdefence. During 1928, Norris campaigned against the election of Al Smith to the presidency, voicing his antiCatholic views from the pulpit, his radio station, and his weekly newspaper. In 1935, he accepted the pastorate of a second church, Temple Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan. By 1946, the combined membership of the two congregations was more than 26,000. For sixteen years, Norris commuted by train and plane between the two churches. In September 1947, while on a tour of Europe, Norris secured an audience with Pope Pius XII and declared that the pope was "the last Gibraltar in Europe against Communism." Thereafter, Norris took the position that communism was more dangerous than Catholicism, and some of Norris's erstwhile allies, such as Toronto evangelist T. T. Shields, criticized him for his "folly." In the late 1930s, Norris organized a group of independent, pre-millennial Baptist churches into the Pre-millennial Missionary Baptist Fellowship (later the World Baptist Fellowship), in an attempt to combat what he believed were socialist, liberal, and "modernist" tendencies within the Southern Baptist Convention. After World War II, when John Birch, a graduate of his seminary in Fort Worth, was killed by the Chinese communists, Norris renewed his attack on Communist influences in the United States. Norris's pre-millennial views led him to urge President Harry Truman to recognize and support the new state of Israel. Norris published a religious newspaper, The Searchlight, the front page of which had a picture of Norris grasping a Bible in one hand and a searchlight in the other while Satan cowered in the opposite lower corner. Norris died of a heart attack while attending a youth camp at Jacksonville, Florida in 1952. He was succeeded at the First Baptist Church of Fort Worth by Homer Ritchie, who pastored the church for 30 years. iii. Historical background George W. Truett [3]

George Washington Truett also George W. Truett (May 6, 1867 July 7, 1944) served as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1927-1929, minister and writer. He was one of the most significant Southern Baptist preachers of his era. He was invited by President Woodrow

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Wilson both to address the Allied forces in Europe and gave a particularly memorable speech supporting freedom of religion on the steps of the US Capitol in 1920. Early Life & Education: Truett was born on a farm in Hayesville, North Carolina, to Charles L. Truett and Mary R. Kimsey. He graduated from Hayesville Academy in 1885 and founded the Hiawassee Academy in Towns County, Georgia. Following his family to Whitewright, Texas in 1889, he joined the Whitewright Baptist Church. It was here that he made the decision to enter the ministry, and Truett was ordained in 1890. In 1891, Truett was hired by the president of Baylor University in Waco to serve as its financial secretary. Enterprising and energetic, Truett raised $92,000 in less than two years and completely wiped out the school's indebtedness. He enrolled as a freshman at Baylor in 1893. Truett married Josephine Jenkins of Waco in 1894 and served as student-pastor of East Waco Baptist Church while at Baylor. He graduated in June 1897 with an BA degree. Life as a Pastor: Truett accepted the position of Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas in September 1897, and remained there until his death in July, 1944. During his 47 year pastorate, membership increased from 715 to 7,804; a total of 19,531 new members were received, and total contributions were $6,027,741.52. While serving at First Baptist, he also served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1927 29, and of the Baptist World Alliance. When the United States entered World War I, he was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson for a six-month tour to preach to the Allied Forces in Europe. Truett's most famous sermon was delivered on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, DC on May 16, 1920. Thousands heard his message, "Baptists and Religious Liberty", in which he reminded the audience that the United States was founded on the principles of religious freedom and separation of church and state. Truett had a special affinity with cowboys who worked the cattle drives in central Texas. He was concerned that these men spent a great deal of their lives isolated from society and the availability of the church. Every year for 37 years, he took several weeks from his pulpit to travel with cattle drives and minister to the cowboys. Truett died on July 7, 1944 in Dallas, Texas. iv. Method Dr. J. Frank Norris

By all accounts Dr. Norris was a true fire and brimstone preacher which is even evident in his nickname The Texas Tornado. He took up real issue with current events such as communism, liberalism, evolution, organized crime, gambling, the liquor interest, and corruption in high places. He was fighting battles and seemed to win victories on many fronts certainly during the height of his fame. The image on the front page of his publication, The Searchlight, the front page of which had a picture of Norris grasping a Bible in one hand and a searchlight in the other while Satan 5

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cowered in the opposite lower corner, speaks volumes of the type of man he was. Growing up in an alcohol-influenced and violent home, his outlook on life must have been one of slight scepticism. Taking up arms and indeed killing a man, albeit in self-defence seems incongruent with what traditional images of a pastor would be, but these events must be seen in relation to the times he was living in. It seems plausible then that the events of his childhood, the social milieu of the time and the apocalyptic framework of his thought process would greatly influence his preaching. Known for pulpit antics like flailing of arms, kicking of feet and throwing things, one could only imagine the drama with which he embellished his booming voice. However, Ps. Louis Arnold,[4] pastor of South Elkhorn Baptist Church near Lexington, Kentucky, recalls great tenderness in the manner of Norris when he called veteran missionary, Fred Donnellson and family, Oscar Wells and others who had miraculously escaped from Communist China, to the platform and presented them to the great audience at a large Baptist convention. Clearly the man had a presence which even preceded his sermon. The same Ps Arnold recalls this episode that happened in First Baptist Church: Just as the brother arose to preach, a door opened behind the pulpit, and 15 or more seminary students burst through the doorway, walked across the platform, down the centre aisle, and out the front door of the chapel. Each one of them had a large bundle of The Fundamentalist, Dr. Norris paper, under his arm. Of course the brother could not begin to preach with all that commotion going on. When the last of the students had left the chapel, Dr. Norris came through the door and walked to the pulpit. He pushed the brother aside, cleared throat and said, Those young men you saw are students in our seminary. The papers they are carrying are copies of the latest issue of The Fundamentalist. He held up a copy of the paper. On the front page was a picture of a preacher. The picture is of Dr. . . , Dr. Norris said, pointing. (He gave the preachers name, but I have forgotten who he was). Dr. Norris continued, Hes a modernist. He doesnt believe the Bible. Hes an infidel, and hes speaking out on Cemetery Hill. (He was referring to the South-western Southern Baptist Theological Seminary). Our boys are going out there to pass out copies of The Fundamentalist to people as they go in to hear this infidel. In this article I exposed him for what he is. Dr. Norris reached in his inside coat pocket and pulled out a telegram. Here is a telegram I received from the people out on Cemetery Hill. They say that if any more of our boys come out there to pass out copies of The Fundamentalist, theyre going to have them arrested. I called judge, so and so, a personal friend of mine, and said, judge if they arrest any of our boys and haul them into court, I want a public trial in a place large enough to hold our crowd. The judge said, Dr. Norris, the only place I know of that will hold your crowd is First Baptist Church. If they arrest any of your boys, well try them in the First Baptist Church. Dr. Norris paused, and then said, The old cat has got her tail caught in the crack under the door. Shes scratching the varnish off the floor, but its her tail. Dr. Norris turned and walked back through the door behind the platform, and the brother who was to preach had to try to go on with the service. I cannot remember what he did or what he said. That he called a spade by its name seems more than obvious. Clearly his direct method of expository preaching found reference with large audiences who became his faithful followers. Norris also clearly had no problem directing his speech at actual individuals, often calling them by name if he thought they were in error or a threat to Baptism as he saw it. Whatever his personal views were he proclaimed loudly from the pulpit and used whatever dramatics he could to emphasise his point.

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Whenever you find a preacher who takes the Bible allegorically and figuratively...that preacher is preaching an allegorical gospel which is no Gospel. I thank God for a literal Christ, for a literal salvation. There is a literal sorrow, literal death, literal Hell, and, thank God, there is a literal heaven."[5] v. Method George W. Truett

When he surrendered his heart to Christ for salvation, he also surrendered his will to God for service. The desire of his life seemed to be, "Thy will be done." This seems to sum up the method of Truett in one sentence. Pastoring the same church for 47 years one would be hard pressed to find flamboyance in the method of Truett. His humble, spiritual, simple preaching earned for him the reputation as the greatest orator of his day with many referring to him as a second Spurgeon. He first remembered feeling a deep need for God's forgiveness when he was only six while listening to an old country preacher. Again, one day while looking for his father's cows, God spared him as he was almost bitten by a deadly rattlesnake. This brought a prayer of thanks and more conviction yet. At age eleven the Spirit again weighed heavily upon him during a local revival meeting in the mountain church house. From these events and his reaction to them one can see that his upbringing was very much in the salt of the earth mode and it would be easy to correlate his preaching style to his upbringing. Dr. J.B. Hawthorne, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, said upon hearing Truett: I have heard Henry W. Grady, Henry Ward Beecher, Phillip Brooks and others of the world's famous speakers, but never in all my life has my soul been more deeply stirred by any speaker than it was that day at Marietta by that boy out of the mountains. My heart burned within me and I could not keep back the tears.[6] Considering himself a topical speaker, he always preached for decisions. After an accident in which he shot a close friend, he was deeply depressed. Truett decided to leave the ministry, even though the shot was accidental. But the prayers of many, plus a vision of seeing Jesus vividly standing beside him, saying, "Be not afraid, George. You are my man from now on," pulled him through his doldrums. Once again one can see how his personal stature influenced his preaching. One can almost imagine the deep sense of humility and conviction with which he must have delivered his sermons. Truett wrote a lovely letter to his wife on his seventieth birthday. He wrote: May 6, 1937My Darling Josephine: The long expected day has arrived. "The days of our years are three score and ten." I have lived out the allotted span of life! Emotions too deep for words stir in my heart. More grateful than my poor words can say, am I, both to God and humanity, for all the mercies that have been showered upon me, through all the fast-flying years! It is all of grace, grace, and Gods wonderful grace! I would this day rededicate my all to Christ, to go and to say and to do and to be, what he would have my hands for all the days ahead, whatever they may be: I do fervently hope and pray that my days ahead may be far better and more useful than the days that are gone. May God mercifully grant it, for His Great Name's Sake![7] By this personal account one can see the deep conviction with which he would have motivated his sermons his ability to have large audiences spellbound was clearly not based on pulpit dramatics or showmanship but rather on a deep sense of conviction and humility. His method can be summed up 7

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as follows: First: Humility. Honours never puffed him up. The smallest child could approach him and the poorest person could reach his great heart. Second: Simplicity. You might wonder what the secret of his power was because his messages, though profound, were always simple, filled with illustrations. He used short, pointed sentences. Third: Spirituality. Many said you felt as though you were in the presence of the Lord when in his company. With all of his spirituality, a person did not feel uncomfortable in his presence. He simply made you want to be a better person after you were with him. Fourth: Oratory. He did not rant and rave to secure the attention of his hearers. He did more to quiet down the preachers of the South than any other man alive. He spoke in a conversational voice. However, his voice of pathos and feeling would make his congregation weep and never be ashamed of it. vi. Critique

Any in depth look into a Past Master will require substantial analysis of the content and manner of the speaker. It is fortunate that both Dr Truett and Frank Norris enjoyed such notoriety that their sermons are well recorded. It is however very difficult to make a distinction between the two speakers in terms of validity their styles were vastly different, but their conversion rate seemed to have been on par. The problem is further compounded by the fact that both speakers had a message of for the time Norris took up the banner of fundamentalism and Truett the one of liberalism and tolerance. In the social milieu of the time, neither of these messages can be deemed incorrect but some debate might rage over the appropriateness of the messages. It would also be futile to try and place the message of Norris or Truett into a contemporary setting perhaps Truetts message would be easier to contemporise but they both spoke for specific times addressing issues of the day. However, that they met a need of the time is undeniable the sheer numbers of their respective churches and the time spent at each testify to that. From a fundamental Adventist point of view one might ask the question about the validity and sincerity of the conversions told of in the history books. This however would be speculation as no record exists of the retention rate of these converted souls. It is also presumptuous to criticize the working of these two great speakers since we should never discount the working of the Holy Spirit on the minds and hearts of men. That we can learn much from both speakers goes without saying one only has to listen to Norris pleading the case for a return to God to appreciate the passion and commitment of these great speakers. Any would-be orator wishing to occupy a church pulpit will do well to take from the good and leave behind the bad in order to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Eugene Visser vii. References

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1. Senior pastor of Fair Oaks Church in Fairfax, Va.; author of Apparent Danger: The Pastor of Americas First Megachurch and the Texas Murder Trial of the Decade in the 1920s. His Web site is Davidstokes.org. 2. Barry Hankins, God's Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996), 9. 3. TSHA Online - Texas State Historical Association, Baylor University, George W. Truett Theological Seminary. The History of Truett Seminary at www.baylor.edu 4. Louis Arnold Ministries, Memories of Dr. J. Frank Norris accessed 18-03-2012 http://www.louisarnoldministries.org/preachers.html#anchor299368 5. Martin E. Marty, Modern American Religion, Volume 2: The Noise of Conflict, 19191941 6. Keith E. Durso , Thy will be done: a biography of George W. Truett, Mercer University Press, 01 Sep 2009 7. Wilderness cry Biography index, accessed 18-03-2012 http://www.wilderness-cry.net/bible_study/bios/truett.html