Charles E. Fuller: America’s Radio Preacher by Chris White

  Charles E. Fuller (1887-1968) was born and raised in Los Angeles California.  Today, Los Angeles is the 2^nd largest city in America attracting an ethnically diverse population so great that one sociologist has dubbed it the capitol city of the Third World.  But the L.A. Charles Fuller grew up in was far more rural, mostly white, and was known for fruit-growing and oil production.  The entertainment industry and glamour of Hollywood was a long ways in the future and local residents were more concerned with expanding the water supply and excited about the recent discovery of the La Brea tar pits. 

  After working several years in the citrus growing business, Charles Fuller sensed a call to Christian ministry and began studies at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles ( known as Biola University today).  Biola as an institution was only 10 years old when Fuller began attending.  It was founded by the former president of Moody Bible Institute Reuben Andrew Torrey along with the help of two oil tycoons who were strong Christians.  During his years there, Fuller studied theology under R.A. Torrey and was greatly influenced by him.  

  Upon completion of his studies at Biola,  Fuller was ordained and began pastoring a  Baptist church in 1925.  A few years later he started a small radio show in 1929 that aired locally in Los Angeles.  Every time letters of support exceeded expenses he would add yet another station and soon was broadcasting his program over several states.  The original name of the show was the Heart to Heart Revival hour.  Over time he gradually bought time through the Mutual Broadcasting System until the show reached coast to coast.

  After several years of being a national broadcast, his show faced cancellation because a national tobacco company was willing to buy the entire network during his time slot.  This pressed Charles Fuller to take a step of faith.  He bought full use of the network even though he didn’t have any of the finances in reserve.  He had no denominational or institutional support, but he did have a loyal audience who through the Great Depression kept this show on the air with nickel, dime, and dollar donations sent through the mail.

  With the expansion of the program it was renamed “the Old Fashioned Revival Hour” (OFRH) and it ran from 1937 until Fuller’s death in 1968.  The program began on the Mutual Broadcasting System but eventually migrated to ABC where at its peak was aired on 650 stations.

The show was originally produced in a studio, but during WWII and until 1958, was done live at Long Beach Municipal auditorium.  While the show was live, during the war years, it was also recorded on LP records and aired all over the world for the benefit of our soldiers and other Americans serving abroad.

  Because this was such a widely listened to radio program and because so many of our G.I.’s were sent to the Pacific theatre through Long Beach, the OFRH became a huge Southern California attraction for soldiers on their way to the war who wanted to be part of the huge studio audience.  Other out of state listeners often planned their vacations around being in the studio audience hoping when Charles had them call out where they were from, their family and friends back home would hear them on the show.

  George Barna, the pollster and researcher, credits Fuller with introducing the phrase “personal savior” in reference to Jesus into the evangelical lexicon from his constant use of the phrase in his broadcasts.  Although the program went into decline during the 1960’s as television began overtaking radio, it was by every measurement a great success during its entire history.

  Fuller said his philosophy of broadcasting was to speak to individuals not crowds.  Always when he spoke on the program he had in his mind’s eye people sitting in lonely places listening to their radios for good company and a comforting word.  He was so effective at this that during the program’s hey-day he garnered a weekly audience of about 20 million people.  Every week thousands of letters were received from these listeners, some of them leading quite dissolute lives, but nevertheless loved the program and thought of it as their church.

  Part of the success of the program was Charles Fuller’s sound gift of preaching, but equal to that was its music.  More than half of the program was music which was performed by very talented musicians who worked for the show.  Many who wrote in to the program said they initially didn’t care to hear any preaching but ended up listening to the sermon because they enjoyed the music so much.   Another feature that set the program apart was that Mrs. Grace Fuller would read some of their listener’s letters over the air.  Her calm and reassuring voice was a personal touch that connected with a lot of people.  In fact, if she was not on the program for some reason, many would write in out of great concern.

  Some have suggested that one of the largest factors that helped the OFRH was that it was located in Southern California.  There were several other religious shows on at the time of similar format and length but never as successful.  The fact that Los Angeles California was known as the entertainment capital of America and the world meant Charles Fuller had access to many of the most talented singers, musicians, and producers in the nation.  His show quickly became the one that others imitated.

  Jerry Falwell claims to have been greatly influenced in his conversion by this show when he was a teenager in the 1950’s.  When he was later to rise to prominence in the media, his television show the Old Time Gospel Hour, was greatly influenced by the OFRH.

  In the 1960s the program’s audience went into sharp decline, but so did all radio audiences as well as movie audiences, as television emerged as the leading form of popular family entertainment.  But by every measurement, OFRH remained a successful program until its final broadcast which coincided with Fuller’s death in 1968.  Reruns of the program still continue on the radio today and now there is an online library where you can listen 24 hours a day.

Listen to a program online now. 

The Canon of Holy Scripture: History, Heresy, and Hearsay Pt. 5 by Chris White

Christ the Good Shepherd Icon

Jesus Christ spoke of Himself as the good shepherd and that his true sheep hear his voice and will not follow another (Jn. 10:4).  As we have been considering the doctrine of canonicity of the scriptures, these words assume an even greater importance.  For the Scriptures do make the claim that they represent the voice of God speaking to mankind in general and his covenant people in particular.  Certainly then it would follow that this “voice” would be recognized by those for whom Christ is their shepherd.  This process of recognition by the communitas fidelum or community of the faithful is more or less the summary of how the canon came to be established: it was recognized rather than determined.  And it came to settlement not so much by decree but by popular support.

Let me break down what we can know about this historically.  First of all there are the rulings of the Councils of Laodicea (363), Hippo (393), and Carthage (399) which all produced statements about the canon of scripture.  What is important to know here is that none of these councils gathered to determine this question in particular, but in the course of their business they created their lists of Holy Scripture to clarify to the bishops and pastors of their respective regions what was the long-held belief of the Christian church on this matter.  How do these lists read? Like the table of contents in your New Testament.

Bishop Athanasius

Before and after these Councils there are also the affirmations of the canon by very important teachers in the ancient church.  Bishop Athanasius was the leader of church in Egypt and Libya and one of the leading theologians at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.  One of his responsibilities as bishop was to write an annual letter to all of the pastors in his see to tell them when and how Easter was to be celebrated that year.  Included in these Festal letters (as they were known) would also be helpful advice and directions on other matters.  In the 38^th Festal letter of Athanasius, he clarifies to this group what books of the Bible are to be taught as scripture.  What does Athanasius’ list look like?  Like the table of contents in your New Testament.

In 400 AD, Jerome of Bethlehem, known for his skill in the ancient Bible languages of Hebrew and Greek, is given an important commission from Pope Damasus in Rome.  Make a fresh translation of the Bible from the original languages into Latin for the use of the church in Europe.  When Jerome makes this translation (known as the Vulgate Bible) he does include the Apocrypha with the Old Testament, but the Latin New Testament contains the same books listed in the table of contents in your New Testament.

After Dr. Luke, Eusebius is the most important historian of the Christian Church.  He was a scholar, a bishop, and served as priest to the Emperor Constantine.  At the end of Constantine’s life in the 340’s, he commissioned Eusebius to have made 50 copies of all the scriptures for the Churches in Constantinople.  The copies he made were of the Old and New Testaments as we know them today.

Constantine the Great

Just an aside, there is today a popular myth that Constantine dictated and edited the canon at the council of Nicea.  This didn’t happen. In fact, the canon wasn’t even under consideration at the time.  However, Constantine did effect our New Testaments in one way---the inclusion of Revelation.  In the Western Empire, the book of Revelation was always embraced, but in the East it was disputed by many because it was so weird and different from the rest of the New Testament.  Constantine loved it and used phrases from it in his political speeches all the time.  The upshot is Eusebius wasn’t so stupid as to produce Bibles at Constantine’s expense without including Revelation.  But this inclusion paved the way for grudging acceptance in the East.  To this day the Eastern Orthodox consider Revelation canonical but do not include it in their liturgical readings.

Those are the historic stepping stones to this doctrine of canonicity but is there anything from the books themselves that might suggest some sort of criteria?  Certainly nothing was ever written down but there are several uniform characteristics shared by all the New Testament writings:

1.     Apostolicity— Jesus told his apostles they were His official and chosen

    representatives and carriers of His message.  It follows that their writings

    would have the weight of Christ’s authority.  Luke, Mark, and Hebrews

    are not written by apostles per se, but it is clear they are under apostolic

    authority.

2.     Antiquity—There were books (such as Shepherd of Hermas and The Didache) which were popular and considered by some to be inspired but were excluded because it was known they were written beyond the lifespan of all the apostles.

3.     Affirmation of Christ—I Jn. 4:2-3.  The test of the incarnation (1 John 4:2-3) was extremely important.  Even though there is diversity in presentation, the Gospels and Epistles seem to speak with unity about the person and work of Jesus.

4.     Acceptance of the Faithful.  God seemed to work providentially in history that these books and not others were accepted and embraced by those indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  There is a collective “thus sayeth the Lord!” that is experienced nowhere else.

So does this mean the Canon of Scripture is fixed permanently, never to be opened again?  Technically no, but in all probability, yes.  After all, there was no official ‘fixing’ of the canon in antiquity, just a recognition that what is included seems complete and from the Lord.  But if we could look for a trend in history, there have never been any serious efforts by orthodox Christians to add or subtract from the Canon since the 4^th Century.  Today, if an archaeologist were to uncover an ancient filing cabinet and found misfiled in the annual budget folder the Letter of Paul to the Laodiceans, it would certainly be read out of curiosity but probably never be included.  Not because it lacked any value, but rather the question seems to have been settled a long time ago.

The Canon of Holy Scripture: History, Heresy, and Hearsay Pt. 4 by Chris White

In part four of this series on the Canon of Scripture I want to continue with the theme of precipitating factors that led to its development.  In my last installment we talked about false teachers who wanted to add to and take away from the scriptures based on their theological excesses.  Certainly another factor in this was the government persecution of the church.  Christians weren’t persecuted in every place and everywhere at once, but the first three centuries of the churches existence was marked by a series of 8 major persecutions.

One of the widest persecutions of the Church came from the rule of the Emperor Diocletian.  Christians enjoyed many years of peace under Diocletian who more or less treated “the Christian issue” with benign neglect.  But something happened along the way and in February of 303, Diocletian issued an edict that all copies of the Christian scriptures must be turned into the authorities on pain of death.  Prior to this, leaders and individual Christians had been punished for their faith, but never had their literature been confiscated.  If your life were at risk for hiding a portion of the scriptures for your church to use, wouldn’t you want certainty that it was a canonical book?

As an aside, it is illuminating that Diocletian attempted to destroy the Church by destroying its Scriptures.  It shows the power of God’s Word and the truth of the Gospel that it was considered subversive by the Roman government.  Today, reading in general is down but especially Bible reading among Christians.  I wonder if persecution were to come today whether this strategy would even be viable?

From this persecution came another problem:  what to do with the traditores or “hand-overs” of scripture?  In North Africa, those who cooperated with handing over scriptures to the government were considered apostates unworthy of communion or fellowship with the Church.  But what if all they handed over was a Christian book that was non-canonical.  Were they still outside the pale?  This persecution created an interesting situation where having a definitive statement on the canon would have been helpful.  In point of historic fact, this actual controversy led to a nearly 100 year schism in the North African church.

Beyond persecution, perpetuation of the faith was also an important factor in the development of the canon.  For many reasons, the Early Church was very aggressive in their doctrinal training of its members.  In some instances a convert could not be baptized until they had undergone three years of training.  A canon would regulate which books would be used in this period of spiritual formation.  The flip-side of this coin is Bible translation and mission work.  The sine qua non of the Christian faith has always been  missionary endeavor.  Missionary work in turn necessitated the scriptures be translated as the faith left the Greek speaking world.  With translation and copying being such a difficult and expensive proposition, a canon would clarify which books were essential.

False prophets, persecutions, and forward progress of the faith were some of the “on-the-ground” issues that necessitated a canon be clarified for the entire church.  But how did that happen?  Was there a clear, straight forward process that was applied somewhere?  The answer to that in my closing essay.

The Canon of Holy Scripture: History, Heresy, and Hearsay Pt. 3 by Chris White

Orthodox Church Service

So far in this series we have been setting the stage for understanding what is called the doctrine of canonicity.  When we speak of the canon of Holy Scripture we are referencing a rule or standard that is accepted by all.  F.F. Bruce defines it as “the list of the writings acknowledged by the Church as the documents of divine revelation.” The canon is beyond merely an official list of books, it is the rule of faith for the Christian. The Christian then has a particular loyalty to a particular series of books as the exclusive source and guide of his religious life.  This transcends loyalty to any particular leader or community of faith.

Because of historic divisions within the church (first Catholic and Orthodox, then Catholic and Protestant) there are slight differences in the canon which I think are important to address at the outset.  There is a small collection of books that are supplementary to the Old Testament which are known today as the Apocrypha.  Jewish and Greek Orthodox believers have regard for the Apocrypha but consider it outside the canon and therefore not scriptural.  They regard it as edifying literature but not inspired revelation.  Roman Catholics regard the Apocrypha as canonical scripture.  This had a long tradition beforehand, but became official in the 16^th century Council of Trent.  Protestants, in either protest or overreaction, have no regard for the Apocrypha as scripture or edifying reading and generally never include it even as a supplement in their Bibles.  Divisions aside, all the major branches of Christianity are in complete harmony regarding the canon of the New Testament and this has remained so all along.

In part three of this series, I want to explore some of the precipitating factors that led to the development of the New Testament canon.  Put another way, why was it necessary to recognize a Canon of Christian scripture?  One of the primary reasons for this was to rein-in on the doctrinal excesses of certain teachers.  Examples abound for this but I think two will suffice as touchstones for the rest.

Montanus: False Prophet of Phrygia

Montanus was a Christian prophet in the province of Phrygia, Asia Minor (Modern day Turkey).  He made bold prophecies that God was soon going to return to this earth and begin the Kingdom of God and when he returns, it will not be to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, but to his village in Asia Minor.  Montanus also taught that he himself was the paraclete or helper Jesus said would come and guide the church into all truth (Jn. 16).  Now if this was true, then what are we to make of the day of Pentecost?  More importantly, Jesus told his apostles to wait in Jerusalem until this “helper” arrived.  That would be quite difficult for them since Montanus lived some two hundred years later and Jerusalem had been destroyed twice during that time period!  What Montanus was claiming (along with the two divorced women who accompanied him as “prophetesses”) was that he was being given new revelations from God.  If Holy Scripture is, as I have asserted earlier, revelation in written form, then why not keep things open that additional revelations may be added?

Another example of doctrinal excess is Marcion of Sinope (also Asia Minor) who was a wealthy businessman and was raised in the church.  It was Marcion’s belief that the message of Christ was brand new and totally unrelated to the Old Testament.  In fact, he believed the God of the Old Testament was inferior to Jesus.  This might have been in part because he didn’t like the Jews which makes one wonder what race he thought Jesus originated from.  His ideas never caught on in the Church and so he broke away and started his own as so many false teachers often do (1 John 2:19).  He even released his own Bible called Gospel and the Apostle which was Luke and the Epistles of Paul because the contents were either written by or to Gentiles.  So, while Montanus would have us add more to the New Testament, Marcion would have us remove entire portions of it. 

Please don’t let me exaggerate this too much in your mind.  Most leaders in the Christian church gave no quarter to the teachings of these two men.  They were considered heretics (the Christian way of saying “the lunatic fringe element”) in their day.  However, the Church more often than not, formulated its creeds and regulations as a result of the actions of false teachers such as Montanus and Marcion.  Like Harold O.J. Brown has suggested, in the pond of heresy is often seen the reflection of what the Church truly believed.  But one of the reasons behind the canon was certainly to protect the church and its scriptures from the excesses of false teachers.