Charles “Chuck” Templeton

Chuck Templeton was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1915. He was brought up in church and became a widely heard and greatly used evangelist in his young adult years. Thousands of people would come to hear him under tents and in auditoriums around Canada and the United States.

In post WWII America, there was a general consensus amongst evangelists that America was on the verge of another Great Awakening. Evangelist Oliver B. Greene, and others like him, would set up a tent, and 6,000 people would come to hear the preaching, without one flyer being handed out. This was true in Canada, America, Australia, Japan as well as other countries around the world. Materialism had not yet taken root.

In those days, Torrey Johnson and Bob Cook had begun the Youth for Christ Organization. In this healthy, revival-promoting climate this group experienced rapid growth. Soon it became a movement and spread like wild-fire. Many thousands were being saved and brought into the kingdom. Chuck Templeton preached for the organization, and he eventually recommended that a young evangelist named Billy Graham be the preacher for this evangelistic ministry. Not long afterward, Templeton headed back to Canada to start a church. Under his effective leadership, the church mushroomed only months after it had begun. Hundreds came, then thousands and the young preacher and his team were kept busy with all the new converts.

Shortly into his pastorate, Charles felt the need to further his education. He moved to New Jersey and took up his educational pursuits at the famed Princeton Theological Seminary. There he was schooled in infidelity and unbelief. Though he had led thousands to faith in Christ, he was now awash in doubts and uncertainty. He left the ministry to pursue politics. After a failed political stint in the Canadian Parliament, he made an effort as a broadcaster, inventor, and finally an author. His most famous work? Farewell to God – My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith. As he lay dying in June of 2001, he reflected his regret with these words, “I miss Jesus.”

This tragedy is not new and has been repeated again and again, but never quite so clearly, in modern times, as in the life of Charles Templeton. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (I John 2:19). Templeton, along with Judas Iscariot, teaches us that though a preacher may have crowds flock to hear him, his ministry is meaningless now and for eternity, unless that preacher has placed simple faith in the Word of the One who bore nail prints on his behalf.

Jack Shuler

Jack was born into the home of “Fighting” Bob Shuler in 1918. His father, not to be confused with the liberal minister, Robert Shuller, was a godly fundamentalist preacher and pastor of the largest Methodist church in Los Angeles. He had a faithful testimony of standing for truth, fighting evil and winning souls. He left a godly legacy for his children three of whom followed in his footsteps as preachers. Jack and his younger brother, Phil, became evangelists.

Jack was a powerful preacher and was greatly used of the Lord in the middle of the 20^th century. In fact, at the same time, Billy Graham was having his 1949 L.A. Crusade, Evangelist Jack Shuler had a tent across town at another location. Both preachers were drawing record crowds to the meetings and both were seeing many come to Christ. These were exciting times to say the least! Evangelist Phil Shuler, who had been an advance man for his brother, said that Jack Shuler was used to see at least one million people come to faith in Christ during his preaching.

Jack Shuler had a talented song leader and soloist named Jack Holcomb. He would lead songs and sing so as to ready the hearts of the people for the preaching. But Holcomb was the one who introduced Vodka to Jack to relax him after the evening gospel meetings. It sure did relax the preacher, in more ways than one.

With this sinful choice and duplicity in place, Jack was set up for greater temptation. He divorced his wife of 20 years. He remarried and fathered two sons with his second wife. He left the ministry and eventually died in his mid-40s. A few years before he died, he told his brother, Phil, “I’ll be dead in a few short years because of my choices.” How sad!

Jack’s life and untimely removal, due to sin, leave us with a powerful lesson to weigh. Neither a rich heritage nor the pinnacle of success and usefulness is any guard against the temptations from the Wicked One. Satan hates the gospel and those who preach it, and he will do everything and anything to take us out. The only way to withstand his attacks and emerge victorious is through fervent prayer, much exposure to God’s Word and yielding to the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Billy Graham

1918 brought another preacher into the world. It was Charlotte North Carolina where Billy Graham was born. No one could have known in his younger years, that he would have such an impact upon this world but impact it for God he did.

He was born into a dairy farmer’s home and was raised under conservative religious background. Yet in spite of his church-going upbringing, he was lost. It was in his 16^th year, at least five weeks into a several week campaign of Evangelist Mordecai Hamm that Billy Graham trusted Christ as his Savior.

A few years later, his parents would encourage him to go to a little Bible college in Florida. It was there he would sense the hand of God upon his life to preach, and on a dew-laden golf course, late one night he surrendered to God’s call.

He had been involved in various ministries before the 1949 L.A. crusade. He pastored for a short time. He traveled as the evangelist for Youth for Christ. He was even the president of Northwestern College in Minneapolis, MN. But after the 1949 L.A. Crusade, Billy became widely known around the country.

A month before the crusade, Billy met with his old friend, Chuck Templeton. He had already been to Princeton and was swirling in a sea of doubt. He peppered Graham with questions some of which he could not answer. Billy was shaken. According to his own testimony, he went out into the woods of California, set his Bible on a stump and prayed, “Lord, I don’t understand everything in that Book, and I don’t have all the answers, but I’m just going to believe it, every word of it.” It was a turning point. The ’49 crusade may not have been held, had he not had that conversation. In reality, a great much of Billy’s life may have been different.

He would travel to over 160 countries preaching the gospel to over 200 million people in person and millions more via radio, television and internet. As many as 3 million people placed their faith in Christ through his preaching. He was used to speak to foreign dignitaries, celebrities, and every US president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Donald Trump. Chuck Templeton said of Billy, “There is no feigning with him. He is intensely innocent.”  He maintained moral and financial integrity. He refused to be alone with a woman in an elevator, and he had his ministry audited every year to keep above board. From this we can learn, and for this we can be grateful.

But Billy had made some serious compromises in his ministry. In the 50s and beyond he had accepted the endorsements of liberal preachers and even the Catholic church. At times he would cooperate with them in his meetings which led to a spirit of ecumenism and greater compromise. The steps that seemed only pragmatic and innocent at first opened the door to later statements and moves that were embarrassing at best and violated Scripture at worst.

All of us have watched, with interest, the events of the past weeks surrounding his death. We have seen the motorcade of his funeral procession met with hundreds of onlookers. We have heard the President’s encouraging speech as Billy Graham’s body lay in honor in the Nation’s Capitol Rotunda. We have seen the funeral with thousands attending and thousands more watching on television. And we have rejoiced at the opportunity for the gospel to be heard afresh and an invitation extended to come to Christ for salvation.

Billy gives us an incredible lesson to consider. The gospel works just as it is! It doesn’t need updating or revising. The message of the Cross is and always will be effective in any age and generation. But it must never be compromised! Never. Any immediate results that seem to come from compromise will be revealed for what they really are at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Romans 14:10-12; I Corinthians 3:11-15).

John the Baptist

He’s the one who had come and gone before the other three. His birth, a little over 2,000 years ago, happened without much notice or fanfare the world over. Yet in the little town where he was born there was quite a stir.

His birth was prophesied by Isaiah hundreds of years beforehand. He was born to Zachariah and Elizabeth who were “well stricken in years.” He was only one of three in the entire Bible who was under a lifetime Nazarite vow. This fact alone, set him apart as being under a life of sacrifice and discipline. His clothing was camel’s hair and his food was locusts and wild honey.

He wasn’t on the cutting edge of ministry. Truthfully, he wasn’t into any of that at all. His method was as old as Enoch. It was called preaching. Timeless, Transcending, Bible-Preaching. It was fearless preaching. He confronted the religious hierarchy of the day. It was compassionate preaching. He brought people to the solution, the Word of God. It was humble preaching. He pointed people away from himself and to the Savior. He preached on judgment, on Repentance, on Sin, on the Holy Ghost and on Jesus! Oh, how he preached on Jesus! Remember his message, “Behold the Lamb of God?” It was a classic.

You would think that with such an outdated method, he would be a flop, but it was just the opposite. “Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan” (Matthew 3:5). Many were saved and baptized. He had the unique privilege of physically introducing Jesus for the first time to a world in desperate need! After all, John was the one of “He must increase, but I must decrease” fame. Then, as the multitudes flocked from his audience to follow after Christ, he said to his disciples, “…this my joy therefore is fulfilled” (John 3:29).

Then the testing came. After confronting Herod for the sin of adultery…adultery with his brother’s wife, he was captured and thrown in Jail. That is one without cable TV and a workout room. This was not the 20th century, and it certainly was not the land of the free. It was there that John had his own personal crisis. While in prison, he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another” (Matthew 11:3)? It was a momentary lapse in a monumental life. Jesus sent them back to John with an answer of hope, assurance and courage, then he turned toward those present and said, “Among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).

John’s ministry would be better measured in months rather than years. He never wrote a book. He never saw a million saved. His body never lay in honor or in state. Instead he came to the end of his life and they lopped off his head because he would not remain silent about the truth. Yet, after he had died, John was the one Herod thought had resurrected and was preaching around Judaea. In fact, it was Jesus. Let that sink in. John the Baptist was so much like the Lord Jesus, Herod thought Jesus was John the Baptist.

John the Baptist gives us three weighty truths, and they are these. Magnify Christ in your message. Magnify Christ in your Stand. Magnify Christ in your Death.

It is more than interesting to consider the lives, the connections, the messages, the choices, the failures, and the deaths of these four preachers. May every blood-bought child of God, every preacher of the Word, and every servant of the Lord take note and walk in integrity; reject deception and duplicity, stand firmly, and die honorably, so that our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ is honored in all!

A quick online glance will reveal that Josh has a positive spirit and a spoken desire to reach many people for Christ. In the past few years, he has revealed a growing desire to influence preachers through his own Idea Day. This is a gathering of men in the ministry, both old and young, who are eager to share new ideas in current day ministry. I applaud his passion for the gospel and his passion to influence folks to be effective ministers.

However, when it comes to his ideas on separation and the view he promotes in this article, he is wrong – Biblically wrong. I do not take issue with him personally. I simply have a problem with some of his ideas. They are inaccurate, unscriptural, and worldly; and silence is no longer an option.

In this article, Josh asked, “Am I wrong?” Our answer is yes! First, this article is factually wrong…several times over. Independent Baptists did not begin as a protest against the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1900s. They trace their history back to men like Adoniram Judson of missionary fame in the 1800s, Shubal Stearns of North Carolina in the 1700s, Roger Williams of Rhode Island, and John Bunyan of England in the 1600s. Then there is Peter Waldo of northern Italy and the Waldensians of the late 1100s through the 1500s, the Albigensians of France, the Lollards of England and the Donatists of Northern Africa. This is just to name a few! This conclusion is based upon an extremely limited understanding of our roots.

Other factual errors include his conclusion that “The Death of John R. Rice” was the beginning of division among Independent Baptists; his assumption that Independent Baptists are a Denomination; his idea that separation is punishment; and his postulation that it is a sin to refuse to unify with those who hold to aberrant and unbiblical doctrines. This list is just a portion of the plain factual errors that exist.

Second, an objective reader of the blog is left to wonder if Josh is enamored with the Southern Baptists as well as other theological compromisers and disdains Independent Baptists while trying to convey the opposite. He leaves this impression via phrases like “the rapid crumbling of the IFB” and his statement that “several vocal leaders within the SBC took exception with the idea of raising 75 million dollars” to reach the world, and his question “why is it a problem for me to have an actual Baptist Calvinist like John Piper preach in my church” and his conclusion “I relate to Criswell more than Norris,” are all indicators of a directional shift away from one position and toward another. No one is stopping him, if that is his desire, but he cannot head one way in action and claim another in word and expect folks to believe him.

Third, the straw men that emerge from this make you think you have come into a zombie scarecrow convention! Josh Teis blows them away in this virtual video game world, all the while presenting them as pictures of how things really are…when they are not. Generalizations with the first-person plural “we” leave the impression that Independent Baptists are collaborating on every decision relating to separation or any other matter. Not so. Other statements like Independent Baptists are “demanding absolute and complete agreement on every matter,” or “a man must separate himself from anyone who doesn’t completely and utterly agree with him,” or “if you happen to disagree with anyone in the family of God, about anything in the universe, you have a right and obligation to separate yourself from them as soon as possible,” or “3^rd degree, 4^th degree separation,” are all off base. Are there some among us who demand perfect agreement on everything? I have been traveling for two decades preaching across the country and around the world in hundreds of Independent Baptist churches. I have found very, very, very few. Do we have strong opinions? Yes. Do we have solid Bible convictions? Yes. Do we have preferences? Of course. Yet one of our tenants as Baptists is Individual Soul Liberty (Romans 14; I Corinthians 8) and Priesthood of the Believer (Hebrews 4:16; Revelation 1:6). Both truths point to the freedom of conscience and immediate access to Heaven’s Throne so that we, individually, from the Bible, can determine what is right on questionable matters. That is the spirit of Independent Baptists I have discovered again and again.

Fourth, there is a disconnect in Josh’s thinking between doctrine and practice. He wants to appeal to the Rodney King in us all: “Why can’t we all just get along?” He mentions the importance of a theological position but undermines the importance of one’s associations. This ignores and violates Scripture. Jehu asked the good king Jehoshaphat after he allied with wicked Ahab, “Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD” (II Chronicles 19:2)? Associations. “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Proverbs 13:20). Associations. “Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go” (Proverbs 22:24). Associations. Our theological position matters so much that it affects our…associations.

Doctrine also affects our practical living. My understanding that God is holy (Isaiah 57:15) helps me to practice personal holiness (I Peter 1:16). This also impacts how we ought to behave in the house of God (I Timothy 3:15). Could this possibly confront a wrong style of music and promote a right style of music for the “house of God”? Absolutely! Does this have any bearing on pulpit attire? Of course! It will influence my spirit, my attitude, my passion, my preferences, my convictions, my behavior, and more. It also has bearing on my personal desire to be less like the world and more like Jesus Christ!

When the church looks and sounds like a nightclub, when the pastor dresses more like the neighborhood teenager seeking to be the next rock star, when Hollywood movie tickets are passed out to church visitors, when preaching is diminished to a sermonette and vested of its authority by a sermon team’s approval or disapproval of it, when Independent Baptist preachers are sitting at the feet of Rick Warren, Chuck Swindoll, T4G, and the Gospel Coalition instead of the New Testament, and when all of this is done in the name of innovation and new ideas something is dreadfully wrong! (FTR, these practices are espoused and encouraged by Josh Teis). Whatever happened to I Thessalonians 5:22 and a myriad of other Scriptures?!? Teis seems either oblivious or unwilling to make the connection between doctrine and practice.

The most egregious and offensive aspect of the article was his misrepresentation of separation. He equated it with division. Not once but again and again! This reveals a glaring ignorance of the Bible. As early as Genesis 1, God separated light from darkness. He separated his people from the Gentiles. Any high point in Israel’s history was when they were separate and distinct from the world, and any low point was when they mixed in with the world and their wicked practices. The same is true with the church of the Lord Jesus Christ! I John 2:15-17, James 4:1-10, and Romans 12:1-2 are all in order here.

When Josh took issue with Ernest Pickering’s book, Biblical Separation: The Struggle for a Pure Church, he laid all the problems among Independent Baptists squarely at his feet. Huh? It seems he is pointing out a problem of politics, (following men) and division (you’re wrong if you don’t see it my way), then ignoring the real cause (the world, the flesh and the devil) and presenting a solution of…more politics (following him) and division (You’re the problem if you don’t see it my way)! This is silly at best and sinister at worst.

In the end, Josh assured us of his love for Independent Baptists and his desire to see us change and practice Biblical separation. I’m for that! The irony is that he only used two verses in the whole blog post…two…only two, and one was used to mock the biblical idea of separation! Josh, may I present to you a few others? Romans 16:17-18 instructs us to “mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.” II Thessalonians 3:6-15 exhort to “withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us…note that man and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.” This is referring to a lazy busybody within the church. I Corinthians 5:9, 11 warn us not to keep company or eat with fornicating, covetous, idolatrous, railing, drunkard, thieving brothers. New Testament separation encourages purity in church endeavors, marriage, personal matters and business. It challenges a purity from sin and worldliness wherever it is found. These Bible passages couldn’t be any clearer. Josh Teis, along with others, has sadly either ignored or misunderstood these passages. A brief study of church history shows, when these truths of separation are ignored, the outcome has never been good. Never.

One of the greatest problems I have with his article is that he makes this whole matter centered around men. Much is made of men who have led us, led us astray or not led us. Little is made about the Bible and the Captain of our Salvation Jesus Christ! If the problem is men, point us to the Bible and Christ. If this was his attempt, he failed. The Independent Baptist position is not men-led or men-driven; it is a fixed point of truth. It will always be. Are there men who rise up as leaders? Yes. Are there those who willingly or inadvertently present themselves as popes? Yes! Yet the solution is not more of the same in an opposite extreme! The solution is not pragmatic philosophy! The solution is not an acceptance of worldliness, ecumenism, and compromise! The proper solution is always the same. Turn back to the Bible and its Author!

There is a new generation of Independent Baptist preachers old and young who are not rising up, that has been part of our problem. They are falling down on their face, asking God to forgive us for our humanistic and worldly practices, steering their people clear of false doctrine and those who practice it, and then stepping into their pulpits and preaching, “Thus saith the Lord!” With these, I cast my lot, not the others who have traded us, are trading us, and will trade us in for another “mess of pottage!”