You may be accustomed to this blog's tradition of celebrating birthdays on this date. As well as Horatius Bonar and Edith Piaf, today is the birthday of W.A. Criswell. W.A. was the first Pastor I worked with when I left Spurgeon's College and moved to Dallas, Texas and as long as my memory lasts it will be my privilege and joy to recall working with him.
W.A. occupied a place of influence far beyond that of any British Baptist other than C H Spurgeon but to meet the man week by week, on a corridor or a catfish restaurant or his somewhat palatial church house was to realise that, for all his reputation in American and Texan politics, in Southern Baptist controversies and in fund raising on a mind-boggling scale here was a man whose greatest excitement was seeing, one by one, ordinary people come from the darkness of sin into the light of Christ's salvation.
It is amazing how many lesser men I have met before and since, especially on this island and in its religion, who have nowhere near as huge a story but nonetheless have somehow managed to lose the plot.
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