Billy Sunday - Good or Bad influence?

Well thanks for all your input on Billy Sunday:

Here is my take,

God used Billy Sunday in the war against modernism and to bring souls to Christ. No one can deny this. God uses many people in his service.

Having said that, just because God uses many different men to bring souls to him and accomplish his purposes - this does not make everything they did and taught right.

The Pastor at my former church was saved back in the 1970's while he was in college, he was watching a Billy Graham crusade on television and accepted Christ as his savior in his apartment.

He will freely admit that God used Billy Graham to bring him to Christ, but not everything Billy Graham does and teaches is right. He would not have Billy Graham come and speak at our church.

From my understanding the same thing applies to Billy Sunday, now he was a fundamentalist and not a modernist by any stretch of the imagination.

My mother told me about my Great grandmother attending one of Sunday's crusades in Detroit some time in the 1920's. She was a Baptist, and a pretty conservative Baptist at that, but she was taken back a bit by Sunday's methods.

From what I have read, I would compare Billy Sunday to Jack Hyles - lots of charisma and people power, but building a man centered ministry. I don't honestly think Billy Sunday or Jack Hyles set out to have a ministry centered around themselves but that is eventually what happened to both.

My great Grandfather was a Baptist preacher and he and my great grandmother went to a Billy Sunday crusade meeting in Illinois by in the 1920s(It was their first and last I might add). She was wearing red lipstick. In the sermon Billy Sunday railed and railed about how Christian women were dressing like harlots wearing their "fancy red lipstick". Needless to say other women around my Grandmother were looking at her during and after the sermon and she was humilated.

I give this illustration to say that while Billy Sunday preached the Gospel he also add alot of man's opinion. He also used the pulpit for politcal purposes as he was one of the driving forces in bring about prohibition.

From his sermon "Booze"
"Whiskey and beer are all right in their place, but their place is in hell."

"In these days when the question of saloon or no saloon is at the fore in almost every community, one hears a good deal about what is called "personal liberty." These are fine, large, mouth-filling words, and they certainly do sound first rate; but when you get right down and analyze them in the light of common old horse-sense, you will discover that in their application to the present controversy they mean just about this: " Personal liberty" is for the man who, if he has the inclination and the price, can stand up at a bar and fill his hide so full of red liquor that he is transformed for the time being into an irresponsible, dangerous, evil-smelling brute. But "personal liberty" is not for his patient, long-suffering wife, who has to endure with what fortitude she may his blows and curses; nor is it for his children, who, if they escape his insane rage, are yet robbed of every known joy and privilege of childhood, and too often grow up neglected, uncared for and vicious as the result of their surroundings and the example before them....
A man comes along and says: "Are you a drunkard?"

"Yes, I'm a drunkard."

"Where are you going?"

"I am going to hell."

"Why?'

"Because the Good Book says: 'No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God,' so I am going to hell."

Another man comes along and I say: "Are you a church member?"

"Yes, I am a church member."

"Where are you going?"

"I am going to heaven."

"Did you vote for the saloon?"

"Yes."

"Then you shall go to hell."

"


From his sermon "Backsliding"
"I tell you I never saw a drinking, dancing, card playing Christian who amounted to anything."

From his sermon "Theater, Cards and Dance"
"You sow bridge whist and auction pitch and five hundred in the home and you reap a crop of gamblers. You sow the dance and the ballroom and you reap a crop of brothels. You sow saloons and you reap a harvest of drunkards.

"You must want a lot of prostitutes or you wouldn't sow dances; you must want a lot of vomiting, puking drunkards or you wouldn't sow saloons, and you must want a bunch of gamblers or you wouldn't play cards in your homes.

If you have any cards in your home, you had better throw them in the furnace when you get back there or else throw your Bibles in the furnace. The two won't mix. Oh, you need not gasp! I am handing it to you straight! There is no use having Bibles around your house if you are going to make a joke of His Word by playing bridge."

First off let me say that I believe we should preach against drunkness(not drinking in and of itself), immoral dancing(close or sensual dancing) and compulsive gambling.

But the problem with Billy Sunday as with many fundamentalists today is the mentality that "if it can be abused than it is wrong".

Billy Sunday's brought his personal battle with alchohal to the world.

Billy Sunday could not see how someone could drink alchohal in moderation - why -because he could'nt. He took this mentality on alchohal and adopted it to many other things.

Here was his thinking(and that of many today):

Card playing is wrong because it can lead to gambling which leads to compulsive gambling.

Theaters are wrong for a Christian to attend because there are some movies and actors that are ungodly.

Drinking is wrong because it can lead to drunkeness(And you were
going to hell if you did not vote for prohibition).

Dancing is wrong because some forms of dance are sensual and can lead to immorality.

(By the way he preached all this while having a pack of lucky stripe cigarettes in his pocket.)

What is the common denominator in his opinions on these matters - it is the same as what many fundamentalists hold today - if it can lead be abused then it must be wrong.

I will close with this account of Spurgeon and his smoking cigars.

Charles Spurgeon smoked a cigar on daily for basis for much of his life. He never "repented" of this because he did not feel it was sinful. In 1874(during the birth of modern fundamentalism) a guest speaker in his pulpit spoke of how he "took his cigar-box before the Lord" and the Lord helped him overcome the sin of smoking.

Charles Spurgeon immediately stood up and said ""Well, dear friends, you know that some men can do to the glory of God what to other men would be sin. And notwithstanding what brother Pentecost has said, I intend to smoke a good cigar to the glory of God before I go to bed to-night. "If anybody can show me in the Bible the command, 'Thou shalt not smoke,' I am ready to keep it; but I haven't found it yet. I find ten commandments, and it's as much as I can do to keep them; and I've no desire to make them into eleven or twelve.

The incident with Charles spurgeon was published in Christian magazines and news papers. Responding to the uproar Spurgeon wrote in a letter:
"I demur altogether and most positively to the statement that to smoke tobacco is in itself a sin. It may become so, as any other indifferent action may, but as an action it is no sin. Together with hundreds of thousands of my fellow-Christians I have smoked, and, with them, I am under the condemnation of living in habitual sin, if certain accusers are to be believed. As I would not knowingly live even in the smallest violation of the law of God, and sin in the transgression of the law, I will not own to sin when I am not conscious of it. There is growing up in society a Pharisaic system which adds to the commands of God the precepts of men; to that system I will not yield for an hour. The preservation of my liberty may bring upon me the upbraidings of many good men, and the sneers of the self-righteous; but I shall endure both with serenity so long as I feel clear in my conscience before God. The expression "smoking to the glory of God" standing alone has an ill sound, and I do not justify it; but in the sense in which I employed it I still stand to it. No Christian should do anything in which he cannot glorify God; and this may be done, according to Scripture, in eating and drinking and the common actions of life."

IFBReformer

 

Sue,

While I understand your motivation your reasoning is bit flawed. First off the stastics for people becoming addicted to things the way you are say are no where near 90%. For instance I just looked up statistics for complusive gamblers and the estimate was around 4%. I study on alchohal addition I heard on the radio a while back said approximately 10% of people who drink will become addicted to alchohal. And even amongest that 10% there are variations.

I agree that alchohal as with many other things can be dangerous. But so can driving to work.

Listen to your logic as applied to other dangerous things and see what you think of it:

If you teach your children that:
It is OK to drive a car.
It is OK to own a gun.
It is OK to take pain medication.
It is OK to enjoy sex(inside marriage).
It is OK to become a photographer.

Who are you going to blame if they turn out to be speeders, killers, pain killer addicts, promiscuous, or a pornographer?

In reality when I teach my son to drive a car I teach him that it can be a dangerous thing. He must drive responsibly.

When it comes to owning a gun, I teach my son that a gun is a very dangerous thing and I show him how to use it responsibly.

When it comes to taking pain medication, I teach my son that it is a very dangerous thing and I show him how to use it responsibly.

When it comes to having sex, I teach my son that sex is a beautiful and natural thing within the confines of marriage for which God designed it. Misued it can cause much heartache or even death(if he gets aids or something like it).

When it comes to photography, I teach my son that a camera can be a dangerous thing when you take pictures of the wrong things or violate people's privacy.

Think about that for a while.

IFBReformer

 

I disagree. Some things on your list were bad, period. Others were not bad, period, but only become bad if misused, such as smoking, drinking alcoholic beverages, and buying a lottery ticket as they fall in the same category as eating(how much and how healthy the food - how much overweight does one have to be to make it a sin?).

I imagine a lot of "drinking a single drop of an alcoholic beverage is a sin" Christians of today would almost pass out if they read about Christians prior to the Temperance Movement as it was as common for Christians to drink alcohol as it is for the "drinking a single drop of an alcoholic beverage is a sin" Christians to drink a carbonated beverage today. For istance, how many of you know that Martin Luther's wife brewed beer and according to Luther, it was very good beer.

I totally agree with Charles Haddon Spurgeon. God gave us 10 commandments and evidently He decided those were sufficient. I have no desire to add on to them. </font>[/QUOTE]Ken the Spurgeonite,

Could'nt have said it better myself.

Spurgeon saw the pharisitical system coming and he was very right in his warnings.

IFBReformer