Joseph M. Stowell, II: An Honorable Leader

by Kevin T. Bauder

If a “young fundamentalist” is under 35 years of age, then not many of today’s young fundamentalists can recall the public ministry of Joseph Stowell II. Stowell began his ministry during the 1930s. After several pastorates, he served the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC) as its national representative, retiring in 1979. After his retirement, he was rarely visible in public ministry. Today, when people hear the name of Joseph Stowell, they most likely think of his son, the former president of Moody Bible Institute. At one time, however, Joseph Stowell II was one of the best-known and most respected figures in the fundamentalist world. On Saturday, June 23, 2007, he passed into eternity.

Stowell retired from the GARBC the same year I went to seminary. I heard him preach several times at my college, where he was a highly respected figure. He was one of the last of the old pulpit orators. American pulpit delivery changed during the 1940s and 1950s, as pastors and evangelists began to mimic the cadences of the radio announcer. Stowell never made that shift. When he preached, he modeled an older manner of declamation, measuring his pronouncements in a resonant, stentorian voice. To hear Stowell preach was to experience a vanished age.

As a preacher, Stowell elevated the Word of God. He lived and ministered during a time when many fundamentalists professed allegiance to Scripture, but few took the trouble to expound it from the pulpit. Stowell loved to unpack the riches of the Word itself. He never resorted to cheap rhetorical tricks or attention-grabbing oratory. For him, the business of proclaiming the Scriptures was too high and holy and serious for such chicanery.

Converted as a child, Stowell grew up as a member of a Baptist church in southwestern Michigan. Baptist conservatives in that part of the state were led by Oliver W. Van Osdel, pastor of Wealthy Street Baptist Church in Grand Rapids. Van Osdel was a pioneer for Baptist fundamentalists, leading in the transformation of “purge-out” separatism into “come-out” separatism. Correspondence in Van Osdel’s files shows that Stowell held Van Osdel in high regard and looked to him as a model for ministry.

Stowell graduated from Wheaton College in the early 1930s. Under the presidency of J. Oliver Buswell, Wheaton was a thoroughly fundamentalist school as well as a topnotch academic institution. Stowell’s separatism was reinforced there, and after his graduation he carried separatist convictions with him into pastoral ministry.

Those convictions were to be tested during the controversies that threatened the early Regular Baptist movement. The GARBC had been formed in 1932, but its organization remained fluid for several years. One of the main issues that threatened to divide the new association was separation. Some leaders in the Regular Baptist movement objected that separation should not be a requirement for churches to fellowship with the GARBC. As a young pastor, Stowell sided with those who thought that the GARBC should be a separatist organization, and he held that conviction throughout his life.

Stowell personally witnessed the emergence of the neo-evangelical movement. He saw the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals, and he rejected its inclusivism. He watched the organization of the Conservative Baptist Association and objected to the CBA policy of permitting dual affiliation with liberal organizations. He witnessed the introduction of cooperative evangelism into Billy Graham’s crusades, and he refused to participate.

Unquestionably, Joseph Stowell II was a fundamentalist and an ecclesiastical warrior. Unlike some within Fundamentalism, however, he never allowed his opponents to rob him of his sweet spirit. He was strongly committed to truth, but he was also strongly committed to charity. He never became the kind of brittle, embittered leader that characterized the far right of Fundamentalism.

He had plenty of opportunity to observe that kind of leadership. Stowell had a front-row seat for some of the ugliest scenes in Fundamentalism. He watched Carl McIntire attempt to take over the American Council of Christian Churches. He observed the slanders that the GARBC had to endure from those whose vision of Fundamentalism involved the “militant exposure of all non-biblical affirmations and attitudes.” He knew that there was a bogus Fundamentalism, and he was aware of fundamentalists whose tactics were directed toward amassing and retaining power.

Some of those fundamentalists seemed to think that an evangelical had to be either a fundamentalist (which meant their kind of fundamentalist) or a compromising neo-evangelical. Stowell refused to be drawn into such false dichotomies. He understood that most evangelicals of his day were not neo-evangelicals, and he entertained the hope that some of them could be drawn to the message of a balanced Fundamentalism. He did not think that he had to compromise his principles in order to enjoy certain levels of fellowship and cooperation with the most conservative evangelicals.

Stowell believed that Christian leaders had to guide their followers mainly by what they taught and the example they set. Because he was committed to this ideal, he never became a power-monger. He shared the sense—it was widespread in the old GARBC—that ecclesiastical power was invested in churches; that associations and agencies existed in order to serve the churches; and that agency executives and association representatives were functionaries rather than shapers of policy. He avoided the bullying, blustering tactics of some fundamentalists, replacing them with the gentle, approachable spirit of an elder statesman. Joseph Stowell II was an important man within his orbit, but he never, ever saw himself as a big shot. He could plainly speak to the issues, but he remained a meek, kind person.

One of the blessings of my life was to grow up in a version of Fundamentalism that was influenced by people like Stowell. It was a version of Fundamentalism in which convictions were held strongly but graciously. Political machinations were kept to a minimum because people like Stowell refused to behave like politicians. They despised the abuse of power. They led by informing and arguing, but they also made sure that other voices got to speak and that the power remained where it was supposed to be: with sovereign, local congregations.

Some branches of Fundamentalism never had that kind of leadership. Even the Regular Baptist movement lost some of it after Stowell stepped down. But Joe Stowell’s Fundamentalism is the kind of Fundamentalism I believe in. And I think it is a kind of Fundamentalism that is worth saving, if we can recover it.

A Prospect of Heaven Makes Death Easy

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign,
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers:
Death like a narrow sea divides
This heavenly land from ours.

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green:
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.

But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea,
And linger shivering on the bank,
And fear to launch away.

Oh could we make our doubts remove,
These gloomy doubts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love,
With unbeclouded eyes.

Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o’er
Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood
Should fright us from the shore.

This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.