Robert Sumner with the Lord

Dr. Robert Leslie Sumner, 94, of Lynchburg, Virginia went to his heavenly home on December 5, 2016. He was born to the late Clarence and Gladys Sumner on August 3, 1922 in Norwich, NY. He accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior at LeTorneau Christian Camp at Canadaigua, NY at age 17. Almost immediately, he felt the call to preach and enrolled in Baptist Bible Seminary in Johnson City, NY where he graduated in 1943. He married the former Orphina Mingori on August 16, 1942.

He was an ordained Baptist minister and evangelist. His first pastorate was in Pontiac, IL. He later served pastorates in Long Beach, CA, Graham, TX, and Portsmouth, OH. In 1955, Dr. John R. Rice, a nationally known evangelist and editor of the Sword of the Lord newspaper invited Dr. Sumner to become Associate Editor and a staff evangelist. Later, Dr. Sumner would write the biography, Man Sent From God, about the life of this good friend and mentor. For years, Dr. Sumner wrote a column for The Sword called Sumner’s Incidents and Illustrations which he later continued in his own paper after Dr. Rice’s death. Dr. Sumner has preached in all of the 50 states, Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, and Brazil. He always gave an invitation for people to accept Christ whenever he preached. He signed his correspondence, “Sincerely for souls.” His messages were saturated with Scripture and he read the entire Bible through four times each year since 1946. He read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month, and read the entire Bible through hundreds of times.

He was the Founder and Editor of The Biblical Evangelist newspaper, which began in 1966 as the Regular Baptist Evangelist and thus just celebrated its 50th year. He was a prolific author of approximately 50 Christian books and booklets. A gospel booklet he wrote, Heaven Can Be Yours, has circulated more than 2¼ million copies in English, and nearly 400,000 in a half dozen foreign languages. In the mid-1960s, he served on the Council of 14 (now Council of 18) of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches. He was inducted into the Fundamentalist Hall of Fame at the Lucerne Conference Center in Lucerne, CA in 1976. He was a Trustee Emeritus for Cedarville University. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Bob Jones University and a Doctor of Sacred Theology from Louisiana Baptist Theological Seminary.

In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by Orphina, his wife of 55 years, and a sister, Evelyn Maurer. He is survived by his five children; Richard (Donna), Ralph (Masami), Ruth (John Purvis), Rita (Terry Phipps), Ron (Suzanne), their spouses and grandchildren, great grandchildren and one great-great grandchild. He is survived by his second wife, Dorothy (Tullar Holm) whom he married on March 20, 2004. He was extremely proud of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Including Dr. Sumner’s children and his eight step-children through Dorothy, the spouses, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren bring the total family number to 126.

A memorial service honoring his legacy and his Lord will be held in the Sanctuary at Timberlake Baptist Church, 21395 Timberlake Rd, Lynchburg, VA 24502, at 2 p.m. on Saturday, December 17. Dr. Paul Dixon, Chancellor of Cedarville University, will bring the message. Final interment will be at a private family ceremony at Lady Lake Cemetery in Florida where his first wife is buried. Memorials are preferred to Dr. Sumner’s ministry, Biblical Evangelism (www.biblicalevangelist.org). Please visit http://www.dignitymemorial.com/whittenfuneralhome to express online condolences.

Dr. Robert L. Sumner was a great evangelist, preacher, author, editor. While Heaven is gain for him, this is a great loss to me and many others.

I’ll be writing more about R. L. Sumner in the days ahead.

Thanks for publishing this information.

David R. Brumbelow

I always appreciated Sumner and have enjoyed his paper for decades. His paper was sensible in spite of a few peculiarities. He was aggressively anti-Calvinistic but I don’t believe he really understood the issue.

Donn R Arms

[Donn R Arms]

I always appreciated Sumner and have enjoyed his paper for decades. His paper was sensible in spite of a few peculiarities. He was aggressively anti-Calvinistic but I don’t believe he really understood the issue.

For some Calvinism is the antithesis of evangelism

Observation: churches that tend towards Calvinism are less likely to host itinerant evangelists special meetings

I’m not familiar with a huge portion of his work, but his warnings about Jack Hyles and the perversions that can occur with the desire for bigness were a wonderful contribution on his part. His response to Jack Hyles’ denial of the allegations is classic—Hyles wandered into a trap where he claimed that Vic Nischik had been something of a pervert, and Sumner’s response was more or less “very interesting….you kept a lecher on your deacon board for how many years? Seems you just confessed to harboring sexual sin in your church, Jack.”

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Thank you Dr. Sumner for exposing the Hyles’ scandals! Baptists owe you a debt of gratitude for your courage and accuracy!

Pastor Mike Harding

Dr. Sumner came to our church for evangelistic meetings when I was in high school. There were so many people wanting to get saved that they ran out of personal workers. For the next 20 years there were decisions made for Christ in every service and the church grew from a few hundred to a few thousand. I met him again when he came to speak at the college I attended. Our loss heaven’s gain.

Richard E Brunt