Billy sunday biography revivalists

Similar to the canvas cathedral that Moses and the Hebrews carried in the Sinai desert, revival tents also had dirt floors. That term applied to the crowd members, who at the end of the preaching time, would walk down front to accept Jesus Christ. Chapman unexpectedly decided to give up preaching on the road and began serving a pastorate in So Billy Sunday started out preaching on his own.

He began with a meeting in Garner, Iowa, and for the next twelve years preached throughout seventy communities located in Iowa and Illinois. He was an evangelist for more than forty years. Many of them lasted for several weeks.

Billy sunday biography revivalists: Born in , Sunday was a

It is estimated that in the 20, sermons he preached he reached face-to-face over , people and led 1 to 1. All this was before electronic microphones, sound systems, radios, and TV were even invented! God gave him a platform to talk to presidents and wealthy businessmen as well as Hollywood stars When he preached, he used the full stage and often raced from one end to the other.

His sermon notes were in BIG letters so that, when racing past the podium, he could see and read them. Then, to make his point, he would pretend he was sliding into home plate. He was a strong supporter of conservative views on religion, such as the prohibition against alcohol. He did acknowledge that when he was a baseball player he had taken a few sips of alcohol and had even gotten drunk on a few occasions.

Here is an example of his preaching from one of his sermons:. She organized the campaigns and did much of the advance work. She even tried to better Billy's vocabulary in her letters to him, deliberately including words he would have to look up. Sunday's preaching style was as unorthodox as the day allowed. His vocabulary was so rough e.

But Sunday didn't care: "I want to preach the gospel so plainly," he said, "that men can come from the factories and not have to bring a dictionary. Sunday was master of the one-liner, which he would use to clinch his practical, illustration-filled sermons. One of his most famous: "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.

He used his whole body in his sermons and other nearby objects, such as his chair, which he would sometimes fling around while preaching. As one newspaper wrote, "Sunday was a whirling dervish that pranced and cavorted and strode and bounded and pounded all over his platform and left them thrilled and bewildered as they have never been before.

Billy sunday biography revivalists: Billy Sunday (born Nov. 19,

He concluded his sermons by inviting people to "walk the sawdust trail" to the front of the tabernacle to indicate their decision for Christ. Unusual for American evangelists, Sunday also addressed social issues of the day. He supported women's suffrage, called for an end to child labor, and included blacks in his revivals, even when he toured the deep South.

This made him enemies, as did his support of Roman Catholics whom he considered fellow Christians and Jews. On one of the hottest topics of the day, evolution, he walked a tightrope: he had no sympathy for evolution, but neither did he warm up to Genesis literalists. However he was never a friend of liberals: "Nowadays we think we are too smart to believe in the Virgin birth of Jesus and too well educated to believe in the Resurrection.

Sunday stopped drinking and began faithfully attending the fashionable Jefferson Park Presbyterian Church, a congregation handy to both the ball park and his rented room. Even before his conversion, Sunday's lifestyle seems to have been less boisterous than that of the average contemporary baseball player. Nevertheless, after his conversion, the changes in his behavior were recognized by both teammates and fans.

Ina fellow parishioner at Jefferson Park Presbyterian Church introduced Billy to Helen Amelia "Nell" Thompson, daughter of the owner of one of Chicago's largest dairy products businesses. Although Sunday was immediately smitten with her, both had serious on-going relationships that bordered on engagements. Thompson had liked Sunday from the start and weighed in on his side, and Mr.

Thompson finally relented. The couple was married on September 5, Sunday's official job title at the YMCA was "Assistant Secretary," but his position also happened to involve a great deal of ministerial work—a fortuitous coincidence that provided him with valuable experience for his later evangelistic career. For three years, Sunday visited the sick, prayed with the troubled, counseled the suicidaland visited saloons to invite patrons to evangelistic meetings.

Continuing on this ministerial career path, Sunday, inbecame the full-time assistant to J. Wilbur Chapman, one of the best-known evangelists in the United States at the time. Personally shy, like Sunday, Chapman commanded respect in the pulpit both because of his strong voice and his sophisticated demeanor. Sunday's responsibilities as Chapman's "advance man" were to precede the evangelist into cities where he was scheduled to preach, organize prayer meetings and choirs, erect tents when necessary and take care of the various and sundry additional requirements of a traveling ministry.

By listening to Chapman preach night after night, Sunday received a valuable course in homiletics. He was also given explicit instruction by his mentor, who critiqued Sunday's own attempts at evangelistic preaching and showed him how to construct a compelling sermon. Further, Chapman encouraged Sunday's theological development by emphasizing the importance of prayer and by helping to "reinforce Billy's commitment to conservative biblical Christianity.

When Chapman unexpectedly returned to the pastorate inSunday struck out on his own, beginning with meetings in tiny Garner, Iowa. For the next twelve years, Sunday preached in approximately seventy billies sunday biography revivalists, most of them in Iowa and Illinois. Towns often booked Sunday's prayer meetings informally, sometimes by sending a delegation to hear him preach or by telegraphing him while he was holding services somewhere in a nearby community.

Always a shrewd self-promoter, Sunday took advantage of his reputation as a baseball player to generate advertising for his revival meetings. In in Fairfield, Iowa, Sunday organized local businesses into two baseball teams and scheduled a game between them. Sunday came dressed in his professional uniform and played on both sides. Although baseball was his primary means of publicity, Sunday also once hired a circus giant to serve as an usher.

When Sunday began to attract crowds larger than could be accommodated in rural churches or town halls, he pitched rented canvas tents. As during the years of his apprenticeship, Sunday did much of the physical work of putting these structures up, manipulating ropes during storms, and seeing to their security by sleeping in them at night.

Not until was he financially successful enough off to hire his own advance man. Inan October snowstorm in Salida, Colorado, destroyed Sunday's tent—a special disaster because revivalists were typically paid with a freewill offering at the end of their meetings. As a result, this chance event was doubly costly as it lost him both the tent and the potential earnings from the Salida revival.

Thereafter, he insisted that towns build him temporary wooden tabernacles at their expense. At least at first, raising tabernacles provided good public relations for the coming meetings, with townspeople joining together in what was effectively a giant barn-raising—not to mention the fact that the tabernacles themselves were also status symbols, as previously they had only been built for major evangelists such as Chapman.

Further, Sunday helped to built rapport with communities by participating in the construction process himself. Eleven years into Sunday's evangelistic career, both he and his wife had been pushed to their emotional limits. Long separations had exacerbated the preacher's natural feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. As a product of a childhood that could well be described as a series of losses, he was extremely dependent on his wife's love and encouragement.

Nell Sunday, for her part, found it increasingly difficult to handle household responsibilities, the needs of four children including a newbornand the emotional welfare of her husband. Coincidentally, this same period also saw his ministry expanding, meaning that he needed an administrator—a job that would ideally suit his practically-minded wife.

As a result, in the Sundays decided to entrust their children to a nanny so that Nell Sunday could manage her famed husband's revival campaigns. Sunday transformed her husband's out-of-the-back-pocket organization into a "nationally renowned phenomenon. Their organization included the standard employees musicians, custodians, and advance menbut also some innovative positions whose inclusion was prompted by the couple's unique vision of their ministry.

Most notably, the Sundays hired Bible teachers of both sexes, who, among other responsibilities, held daytime meetings at schools and shops, and encouraged their audiences to attend the main tabernacle services in the evenings. With his wife administering the campaign organization, Sunday was free to do what he did best: compose and deliver popular sermons.

While his bombastic style and simple, "matter-of-fact" theology discussed below earned the preacher his share of critics, it is undeniable that they also brought him considerable success and approbation. Throughout this decade, Sunday was front-page news in the cities where he held campaigns. Newspapers often printed his sermons in full, and even during World War Ilocal coverage of his campaigns often equaled or surpassed the media attention received by the war.

Sunday was the subject of over sixty articles in major periodicals, and he was a staple of the religious press regardless of denomination. During these meetings, individuals would be "invited" to come forward and renew their commitment to Christ. Specifically, the floors of Sunday's hastily-constructed tabernacles were covered with sawdust, [27] which led the act of coming forward during the invitation to become known as "hitting the sawdust trail.

Apparently, the phrase "hitting the sawdust trail" had first been used by loggers in the Pacific Northwest to describe following home a trail of previously dropped sawdust through an uncut forest—a metaphor for coming from, in Nell Sunday's words, "a lost condition to a saved condition. The financial contributions made by large crowds, especially when coupled with Nell's efficient organization, meant that Sunday, the formerly impoverished war orphan, was soon netting hefty profits.

The first questions about Sunday's income were apparently raised during the Columbus, Ohio campaign at the turn of With his newfound wealth and influence, Sunday was welcomed into the circle of the social, economic, and political elite. He counted among his neighbors and acquaintances several prominent businessmen. Rockefeller, Jr. Though typically frugal, the Sundays were occasionally willing to make use of their considerable fortune.

For instance, the couple enjoyed dressing themselves and their children stylishly; the family sported expensive but tasteful coats, boots, and jewelry. There were musicians, custodians, and advance men; but the Sundays also hired Bible teachers of both genders, who among other responsibilities, held daytime meetings at schools and shops and encouraged their audiences to attend the main tabernacle services in the evenings.

The most significant of these new staff members were Homer Rodeheaveran exceptional song leader and music director who worked with the Sundays for almost twenty years beginning in[ 35 ] and Virginia Healey Asherwho besides regularly singing duets with Rodeheaver directed the women's ministries, especially the evangelization of young working women.

With his wife administering the campaign organization, Sunday was free to compose and deliver colloquial sermons. Typically, Homer Rodeheaver would first warm up the crowd with congregational singing that alternated with numbers from gigantic choirs and music performed by the staff. When Sunday felt the moment right, he would launch into his message.

Sunday gyrated, stood on the pulpit, ran from one end of the platform to the other, and dove across the stage, pretending to slide into home plate. Sometimes he even smashed chairs to emphasize his points. His sermon notes had to be printed in large letters so that he could catch a glimpse of them as he raced by the pulpit. In messages attacking sexual sin to groups of men only, Sunday could be graphic for the era.

Many of the things said and done bordered upon things prohibited in decent society. The sermon on amusements was preached three times, to mixed audience of men and women, boys and girls. If the sermons to women had been preached to married women, if the sermons to men had been preached to mature men, if the sermon on amusements had been preached to grown folks, there might have been an excuse for them, and perhaps good from them.

But an experienced newspaper reporter told me that the sermon on amusements was "the rawest thing ever put over in Syracuse. Sunday's sermon on the sex question was raw and disgusting. He also heard the famous sermons on amusements and booze. He saw people carried out who had fainted under that awful definition of sensuality and depravity.

Homer Rodeheaver said that "One of these sermons, until he tempered it down a little, had one ten-minute period in it where from two to twelve men fainted and had to be carried out every time I heard him preach it. Injournalist Lindsay Denison complained that Sunday preached "the old, old doctrine of damnation". Denison wrote, "In spite of his conviction that the truly religious man should take his religion joyfully, he gets his results by inspiring fear and gloom in the hearts of sinners.

The fear of death, with torment beyond it—intensified by examples of the frightful deathbeds of those who have carelessly or obdurately put off salvation until it is too late—it is with this mighty menace that he drives sinners into the fold. Crowd noise, especially coughing and crying babies, was a significant impediment to Sunday's preaching because the wooden tabernacles were so acoustically live.

During his preliminaries, Rodeheaver often instructed audiences about how to muffle their coughs. Nurseries were always provided, infants forbidden, and Sunday sometimes appeared rude in his haste to rid the hall of noisy children who had slipped through the billies sunday biography revivalists. Tabernacle floors were covered with sawdust to dampen the noise of shuffling feet as well as for its pleasant smell and its ability to hold down the dust of dirt floorsand walking to the front at the preacher's invitation became known as "hitting the sawdust trail.

Apparently, "hitting the sawdust trail" had first been used by loggers in the Pacific Northwest to describe following home a trail of previously dropped sawdust through an uncut forest — described by Nell Sunday as a metaphor for coming from "a lost condition to a saved condition. Newspapers often printed his sermons in full, and during World War I, local coverage of his campaigns often surpassed that of the war.

Sunday was the subject of over sixty articles in major periodicals, and he was a staple of the religious press regardless of denomination. Over the course of his career, Sunday probably preached to more than one hundred million people face-to-face—and, to the great majority, without electronic amplification. Vast numbers "hit the sawdust trail.

Before his death, Sunday estimated that he had preached nearly 20, sermons, an average of 42 per month from to During his heyday, when he was preaching more than twenty times each week, his crowds were often huge. Even inwell into the period of his decline,people attended the 79 meetings of the six-week Columbia, South Carolinacampaign — 23 times the white population of Columbia.

Nevertheless,"trail hitters" were not necessarily conversions or even "reconsecrations" to Christianity. Sometimes whole groups of club members came forward en masse at Sunday's prodding. ByRodeheaver was complaining that Sunday's invitations had become so general that they were meaningless. Large crowds and an efficient organization meant that Sunday was soon netting hefty offerings.

The first questions about Sunday's income billy sunday biography revivalists apparently raised during the Columbus, Ohiocampaign at the turn of — Sunday was welcomed into the circle of the social, economic, and political elite. He counted among his neighbors and acquaintances several prominent businessmen. Rockefeller Jr. The Sundays enjoyed dressing well and dressing their children well; the family sported expensive but tasteful coats, boots, and jewelry.

Nell Sunday also bought land as an investment. Inthe Sundays bought an apple orchard in Hood River, Oregonwhere they vacationed for several years. Although the property sported only a rustic cabin, reporters called it a "ranch. Although Sunday enjoyed driving, the couple never owned a car. Inthe Sundays moved to Winona Lake, Indianaand built an American Craftsman -style bungalow, which they called "Mount Hood", probably as a reminder of their Oregon vacation cabin.

The bungalowfurnished in the popular Arts and Crafts style, had two porches and a terraced garden but only nine rooms, 2, square feet m 2 of living space, and no garage. Sunday was a conservative evangelical who accepted fundamentalist doctrines. He affirmed and preached the biblical inerrancythe virgin birth of Jesusthe doctrine of substitutionary atonementthe bodily resurrection of Jesusa literal devil and helland the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

At the turn of the 20th century, most Protestant church members, regardless of denomination, gave assent to these doctrines. Sunday refused to hold meetings in cities where he was not welcomed by the vast majority of the Protestant churches and their clergy. Sunday was not a separationist as were many Protestants of his era. He went out of his way to avoid criticizing the Roman Catholic Church and even met with Cardinal Gibbons during his Baltimore campaign.

Also, cards filled out by "trail hitters" were faithfully returned to the church or denomination that the writers had indicated as their choice, including Catholic and Unitarian. Although Sunday was ordained by the Presbyterian Church inhis ministry was nondenominational and he was not a strict Calvinist. He preached that individuals were, at least in part, responsible for their own salvation.

Sunday never attended seminary and made no pretense of being a theologian or an intellectual, but he had a thorough knowledge of the Bible and was well read on religious and social issues of his day. His surviving Winona Lake library of six hundred books gives evidence of heavy use, including underscoring and reader's notes in his characteristic all-caps printing.

Billy sunday biography revivalists: William (Billy) Ashley Sunday

Some of Sunday's books were even those of religious opponents. He was once charged with plagiarizing a Decoration Day speech given by the noted agnostic Robert Ingersoll. Sunday's homespun preaching had a wide appeal to his audiences, who were "entertained, reproached, exhorted, and astonished. Sunday's theology, although sometimes denigrated as simplistic, was situated within the mainstream Protestantism of his time.

Sunday was a lifelong Republicanand he espoused the mainstream political and social views of his native Midwest: individualism, competitiveness, personal discipline, and opposition to government regulation. Tichenor[ 65 ] and John Reed attacked Sunday as a tool of big business, and poet Carl Sandburg called him a " four-flusher " and a "bunkshooter.

For example, he denounced child labor [ 67 ] and supported urban reform and women's suffrage. Sunday was a passionate supporter of America entering World War I. Sunday had been an ardent champion of temperance from his earliest days as an evangelist, and his ministry at the Chicago YMCA had given him first-hand experience with the destructive potential of alcohol.

Sunday's most famous sermon was "Get on the Water Wagon", which he preached on countless occasions with both histrionic emotion and a "mountain of economic and moral evidence. I have been, and will go on, fighting that damnable, dirty, rotten business with all the power at my command. When the tide of public opinion turned against Prohibition, he continued to support it.

After its repeal inSunday called for its reintroduction. Sunday also opposed eugenicsrecent immigration from southern and eastern Europe, [ 78 ] and the teaching of evolution. Sunday's popularity waned after World War I, when many people in his revival audiences were attracted to radio broadcasts and moving pictures instead. Tragedy marred Sunday's final years.

His three sons engaged in many of the activities he preached against, and the Sundays paid blackmail to several women to keep the scandals relatively quiet. Then the Sundays' daughter, the only child actually raised by Nell, died in of what seems to have been multiple sclerosis. Nevertheless, even as the crowds declined during the last 15 years of his life, Sunday continued accepting preaching invitations and speaking with effect.

In earlyhe had a mild heart attack, and his doctor advised him to stay out of the pulpit. Sunday ignored the advice. He died on November 6, a week after preaching his last sermon on the text "What must I do to be saved? Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history.