Posted on 01/02/2009 9:06:32 PM PST by PAR35
For more than half a century, the First Baptist Church of Dallas could claim among its members one of the most famous of Christians – the Rev. Billy Graham.
But that distinction has ended with the 90-year-old evangelist's decision to join the First Baptist Church of Spartanburg, S.C., which is much nearer his home in Montreat, N.C.
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Members of First Baptist Spartanburg voted him in on Sunday.
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(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
I remember back in 1994 there was a Billy Grahma crusade here and one sunday Billy Graham appearred in our church to talk about the crusade in the Presbyterian church I went to. He spoke about how he was raised a Presbyterian and he said he was a “real Presbyterian”. LOL!
His wife (Ruth Bell Graham) was a real Presbyterian. Her father was a missionary to China, and later served as Moderator of the southern PCUS (prior to the merger). His brother in law (Clayton Bell) was senior pastor at was of the then most powerful churches in the PCUSA.
Dr. Criswell is crying somewhere tonight...
That’s weird, in my opinion. Why wouldn’t he join a church nearer than 100 miles away?
That did seem a bit strange at first, but Ashville is overrun by aging hippies and other liberals, and Spartanburg is the nearest population center. While there would be some smaller churches that were closer, he might have been concerned with the impact in might have had on a smaller body.
That part of the world has a lot of Presbyterians and Methodists; Baptists might be 3rd or 4th in that area.
Which means a Baptist congregation on every 3rd or 4th block :-). But I see your point, and given Rev. Graham's age and state of health, it's unlikely he'll be a regular attendee, so the distance may not matter.
Yes, it’s not like he’s been a regular at FBC Dallas over the last few years.
Any move would have been seen as a mark against FBCDallas or an endorsement of another pastor, so it probably made sense to leave his membership where it was.
FBCSpartanburg looks like a local megachurch (claims 6500 members) with a pastor who’s not really a household name. Looks like he’s had ties to the Graham organization for some time:
“Dr. Wilton has served on numerous occasions as a faculty member at the Billy Graham Schools of Evangelism across the US and Europe, as well as teaching seminars at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove. “
http://www.fbs.org/templates/cusfbspartanburg/details.asp?id=21501&PID=42831
Dr. Wilton seems to be highly qualified. The bio says he’s from South Africa ... I wonder if he still has the cute accent!
Couple of questions...is Clayton still alive? I heard he had passed away.
Dr. L. Nelson Bell was also the editor of Presbyterian Life at one time, right?
Clayton Bell passed away several years ago - I think in 2000. Interesting bit of trivia about that. He had announced his retirement, and a search committee had picked a successor. Clayton passed away the weekend that the new pastor was supposed to start. The first official act of the new guy was the funeral.
It was the Presbyterian Journal that Nelson Bell was associated with.
Thanks for the info.
I had heard Clayton had passed away, just wasn’t sure. If he passed in 2000, he was only 68 or 69. Do you know the cause?
Regarding Dr. Bell, I knew it was something Presbyterian. :))
On a further trivia note, Clayton Bell played high school football with the former Chancellor of North Carolina State U., Larry Monteith. They weren’t in the same class. Bell was a year ahead of Monteith.
i think it was a heart attack. He’d had a history of heart problems - I understand that was one reason he retired. The stress of the church split can’t have helped. I believe that he was truly surprised when things spiraled out of control in 1990=91. But that was already a decade behind him when he died.
I think he died over the 4th of July weekend, or right before. Seems like the new pastor was to start on July 1.
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know about the church split.
A majority of the members of Highland Park Presbyterian voted in 1991 to leave the liberal PCUSA. Since the majority was less than 2/3 however, the church remained in the denomination. Clayton Bell let the opposition to the vote, and tried to block it. (If he had favored the withdrawal, it would have easily received the necessary votes.) He was surprised when the lay leadership managed to force a vote, and even more surprised by the outcome.
In any event, about 1500 folks left after the vote, and a couple of million or so in annual giving.
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