Church History

John Monroe Parker

June 23, 1909-June 23, 2009

Editor’s Note: Today marks the one hundredth anniversary of Dr. Monroe’s birth. He went home to glory on July 17, 1994.

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John” (John 1:6). John Monroe Parker was born June 23, 1909, in Thomasville, Alabama. His parents, Jacob and Lucy Parker, named him after John Parker, a paternal uncle who was a Baptist preacher, and Monroe, a maternal uncle who died in infancy. He was always known by his middle name. Before he reached school age, Parker’s parents moved the family to Texas. When he was thirteen, his parents returned to Thomasville, Alabama, and in 1925 the family moved to Birmingham. There the robust young man, an outstanding athlete, finished high school and entered college.

Monroe’s parents were godly people, and they provided a godly atmosphere in the home. Monroe made a profession of faith at eight years of age and was baptized in Edgewood, Texas. He records that though he gave intellectual assent to the truths of Christianity, “I was a sinner and I knew it.” ¹ Many of us remember Monroe Parker’s statement about his early college years as a lost church member. He used to say, “I helped make the twenties roar.” ²

^{Note: This article is reprinted from The Faith Pulpit (April 1999), a publication of Faith Baptist Theological Seminary (Ankeny, IA). It appears here with some slight editing.}

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What is happening today is not new, and it is not isolated to only a few rare incidents. Let us note and learn from some examples from the past.

Andover Seminary. Andover was started in 1807-1808 because a Unitarian had been appointed as professor of theology at Harvard. Every attempt was made to safeguard the new school’s orthodoxy. Yet within 75 years, the school’s faculty was promoting views way out of line with traditional orthodoxy, and during its 100th anniversary year—1908—it became identified with and moved back to the Harvard campus! (See: Ernest Gordon, The Leaven of the Sadducees, Chapter VI, “The Looting of Andover.”)

Rochester Seminary. Rochester Seminary had as its president from 1872 to 1912 (a forty year period) the well-known systematic theologian Augustus Hopkins Strong. Strong’s Systematic Theology is still required reading in many conservative colleges and seminaries today. Yet we are told, “Strong was in his own mind generally open to the consideration of new ideas, and his students were taught to think for themselves, so that, as one alumnus wryly reported, ‘in from one to ten years after graduation a goodly crop of ‘heretics’ is found on the alumni roll.’” (See: “Academic Freedom…” by LeRoy Moore, Jr., Foundations, January- March, 1967, X, #1, p. 66.) When Henry Vedder wrote his stinging attack upon the Bible and its essential teachings he dedicated that book (The Fundamentals of Christianity) “…to my teacher in theology, Augustus Hopkins Strong,” as did also Walter Rauschenbusch, the well-known prophet of the Social Gospel, in his book on A Theology for the Social Gospel where he states: “This book is inscribed with reverence and gratitude to Augustus Hopkins Strong…my teacher, colleague, friend…” Yet Dr. Strong, after touring several mission fields later in life, spoke out against liberalism. He observed:

Note: This article is reprinted from The Faith Pulpit (March 1999), a publication of Faith Baptist Theological Seminary (Ankeny, IA). It appears here with some slight editing.

^{Note: This article is reprinted from The Faith Pulpit (March 2002), a publication of Faith Baptist Theological Seminary (Ankeny, IA). It appears here verbatim.}

Tyson, John R. Assist Me to Proclaim: The Life and Hymns of Charles Wesley. Library of Religious Biography. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008. Paperback, 328 pages. $22.00

(Review copy courtesy of Eerdmans.)

by Pastor Dan Miller

^{Editor’s Note: This article was reprinted with permission from Dan Miller’s book Spiritual Reflections.}

by Pastor Dan Miller

^{Editor’s Note: This article was reprinted with permission from Dan Miller’s book Spiritual Reflections.}