Carl McIntire
Encyclopedia
Carl McIntire was a founder of, and minister in, the Bible Presbyterian Church
, founder and long president of the International Council of Christian Churches and the American Council of Christian Churches
, and a popular religious radio broadcaster, who proudly identified himself as a fundamentalist.
, Carl McIntire was the oldest of four children born to Charles Curtis McIntire, a Presbyterian minister and M.A. graduate of Princeton University
, and Hettie Hotchkin McIntire. McIntire's father pastored in Salt Lake City, but by 1912 he had suffered a mental breakdown and was hospitalized. He and his wife were divorced, and she raised the children alone in Durant, Oklahoma
, where she served as Dean of Women at Southeastern State Teachers College (now Southeastern Oklahoma State University
). Carl McIntire completed high school in Durant and attended Southeastern State, where he became an award-winning intercollegiate debater and president of the student body during his final year. For his senior year, he transferred to Park College, Parkville, Missouri
, where he received his B.A. degree before entering Princeton Theological Seminary
, New Jersey, in 1928 to prepare for the Presbyterian ministry. Meanwhile he worked as a janitor and sold maps to farmers door-to-door in Caddo County, Oklahoma
.
During the late 1920s, Princeton Seminary was embroiled in The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy that had disquieted the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
as well as other Protestant denominations. McIntire became a strong supporter of J. Gresham Machen, a conservative professor of New Testament. With Machen, McIntire opposed a reorganization of the seminary in 1929 that appeared to strengthen liberal elements in the church. He followed his mentor and three other professors from Princeton to the newly founded Westminster Theological Seminary
, where he completed his Th.B. degree in 1931.
In May 1931, he married Fairy Eunice Davis of Paris, Texas
, whom he had met when they were both students at Southeastern, and who became a high school English teacher while he completed seminary. They had three children. After the death of Fairy Davis McIntire in 1992, McIntire married Alice Goff, a church office administrator with whom he had worked for many years.
. In 1933, he was called to the Presbyterian Church of Collingswood, New Jersey
, near Philadelphia, the largest church in the West Jersey Presbytery. McIntire remained a resident of Collingswood
for the rest of his life. The Women's Missionary Society of the Collingswood church called his attention to what they perceived as a modernist perspective in the missions study book, which had been promoted by the denomination's Board of Foreign Missions. McIntire joined the conservative side in the on-going Fundamentalist-Modernist debate, and in 1934, at Machen's invitation, he became a founding member of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions
, an agency organized as an alternative to the denominational mission board that the conservatives claimed supported theologically liberal missionaries. The Presbyterian Church treated the new board as a challenge to its authority and demanded that the clergymen resign. After they refused, Machen, McIntire, and seven other clergymen were tried by an ecclesiastical court in 1935-36. The board members lost, and they renounced the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church, as did the Collingswood Presbyterian Church, only a tiny minority of whose members refused to support their young pastor.
In 1936 McIntire joined Machen and others to found the Presbyterian Church of America, later renamed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
. The new church attracted supporters from other Reformed traditions, complicating the church's effort to define itself. A debate soon emerged in the young denomination over eschatology
, Presbyterian traditions, the use of alcohol and tobacco, and the place of political activity in the church. McIntire and others left in 1937 to form the Bible Presbyterian Church
, which emphasized Fundamentalist distinctives in contrast to continental Reformed traditions, supporting political involvement, the Scofield Reference Bible
, a premillennialist view of eschatology, and abstinence from the use of tobacco and alcohol.
In April 1938, after the Collingswood church lost a civil suit over control of its church property, the congregation walked out en masse from their impressive Gothic building and followed McIntire to a huge tent erected several blocks east on the main street at Haddon Avenue and Cuthbert Boulevard. In May 1938, the congregation moved into a wooden "Tabernacle," and in November 1957, into a neo-colonial church building with a tall, Wren steeple. The church seated more than a thousand. A Sunday School was constructed on the location of the previous tent, and the revamped Tabernacle became an activity center.
, and fluoridation of the water. An associate pastor of the Collingswood church, Charles Richter, known to listeners as "Amen Charlie," regularly "amened" his support of McIntire's statements. During the 1960s, the program may have been heard on as many as 600 radio stations—although McIntire's inaccuracy with numbers became legendary. In 1965, McIntire effectively purchased radio station, WXUR, Media, Pennsylvania
, although it was formally owned by Faith Theological Seminary.
on the Jersey shore at Harvey Cedars, New Jersey
(1941–56). After the Bible Presbyterian denomination underwent its first split in the latter year, McIntire's organization purchased the historic Admiral Hotel in Cape May, New Jersey
in 1962, and founded the Christian Admiral Bible Conference and Freedom Center. McIntire added a number of distressed properties to his holdings, becoming an unwitting preservationist as he prevented outmoded structures—the most notable being the nineteenth-century Windsor and Congress Hall
hotels—from being destroyed to make room for motels. The conference itself contributed to the revival of Cape May as a summer resort. In 1971, McIntire also developed a Bible conference in Cape Canavaral, Florida.
(ACCC) as a conservative alternative to the liberal Federal (later, National) Council of Churches
(NCC). In 1948, he likewise helped to found the International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC) to challenge the World Council of Churches
(WCC). McIntire was elected first President of the ICCC and was reelected at each World Congress until he died. He and his wife, Fairy, traveled around the world scores of times both to encourage evangelical Christians abroad and to demonstrate his opposition to the World Council of Churches. (During McIntire's long presidency, the headquarters of the ICCC were located in Amsterdam, and J. C. Maris served as General Secretary.)
, in 1953. In 1964, the college moved to Cape May, and closed in the 1980s after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a decision of the New Jersey Department of Higher Education that forbade Shelton from granting degrees. Faith Theological Seminary
, organized in 1937 as an independent school associated with the Bible Presbyterian denomination, later occupied Lynnewood Hall
, the Gilded Age estate of P.A.B. Widener in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania
. McIntire and west coast supporters of the Bible Presbyterian Church founded Highland College in Pasadena, California, a small Christian liberal arts college, and remained associated with the college until 1956.
, the doctrinal standard of the Presbyterian Church and by the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed
. He was a Calvinist who believed that John Calvin's
Institutes of the Christian Religion
, the Westminster Confession, and the Shorter and Larger Westminster Catechism
s were the finest articulations of the Christian faith.
McIntire emphasized the doctrine of separation, which he based on 2 Corinthians 6:17: "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." To McIntire, separation emphasized the purity of the church in opposition to apostasy, the falling away from the historic Christian faith in which he believed theological liberals to be engaged. Like other fundamentalists of the period, McIntire also separated from evangelical groups, such as the National Association of Evangelicals
(NAE), which he believed had compromised with the liberalism of the National Council of Churches. He early rejected the Neo-evangelicalism of Billy Graham
even before Graham's New York City Evangelistic Crusade of 1957, because Graham's organization had accepted the support of those McIntire regarded as liberals.
, and afterwards he became a champion of anti-Communism
and especially one who attacked Communist control of religion in the Soviet Union. McIntire argued that although America had once honored God and freedom, it was in danger of losing its heritage. On his radio program, McIntire often repeated the slogan, "Freedom is everybody's business, your business, my business, the church's business, and a man who will not use his freedom to defend his freedom, does not deserve his freedom."
McIntire attracted considerable public attention through his public demonstrations, early gaining a feel for gestures that attracted popular notice. For instance, in 1947, he unsuccessfully opposed a revised New Jersey state constitution in a radio address entitled, "The Governor's Kittens," while he (more-or-less) held a cat and kittens before the microphone. McIntire attended virtually every important meeting of the World Council of Churches
wherever its meetings were held and usually mounted demonstrations with placards outside the meeting hall, calling attention to what he regarded as the WCC's religious apostasy or its collaboration with Russian clergy who he believed were KGB operatives.
His radio station, WXUR, became engaged in a running battle with the Federal Communications Commission
over the then-applicable “fairness doctrine,” by which radio stations had to provide varied political views to retain their licenses. When the FCC refused to renew the WXUR license and the station was forced off the air in 1973, McIntire demonstrated his theatrical flair by holding a "funeral" for the station (complete with coffin) while dressed as John Witherspoon
, a Presbyterian pastor and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
After a supporter purchased for McIntire a World War II vintage wooden-hulled Navy minesweeper named Oceanic (which McIntire renamed Columbus), he tried to broadcast outside the three-mile limit near Cape May
, calling the floating station "Radio Free America." The station began broadcasting at 12:22 PM Eastern Time on September 19, 1973, but was only on the air for ten hours—the ship began to smoke from the heat of the antenna feeder line, and the signal interfered with that of radio station WHLW in Lakewood, New Jersey which broadcast on a neighboring frequency of 1170 kHz. Nevertheless, the notion of a Christian pirate radio station
off the United States caught the attention of the media. "I became a very famous man out of that," McIntire later recalled, "People stood along the coast to see me. It was a crazy thing to do, but it was dramatic."
McIntire also gained the public eye in the early 1970s when he organized a half dozen pro-Vietnam War “Victory Marches” in Washington, D.C. The march of October 3, 1970 was supposed to have featured South Vietnamese vice-president Nguyen Cao Ky
, but the Nixon
administration ensured that Ky would not be present.
More than once McIntire's sense of the dramatic passed over into the risible, as for instance, when he urged in 1971 that a full-scale version of the Temple of Jerusalem
be constructed in Florida or two decades later when he suggested that Noah's ark
be rebuilt and perhaps refloated off his conference center in Cape May. "It would be a tourist attraction," said McIntire of the latter, "and it would forever down these liberals." In 1970, when gay activists proposed "Stonewall Nation,"
the takeover of sparsely populated Alpine County, California
, McIntire announced that he would counteract the plan by having his followers move to the area in trailers. Neither the activists nor McIntire did anything of the sort.
with a populist appeal to what he called “the grass roots.” A gifted preacher when he chose to be, he seemed to prefer dabbling in politics to Bible exposition. A man who inspired listeners and easily raised money for his various ministries, McIntire had few trustworthy associates to manage the day-to-day activities of his ramshackle empire. Nor could he brook sharing power. In the 1960s his long-time friend and fellow fundamentalist, Robert T. Ketcham
, pleaded with McIntire to "be more gracious in his dealings with other Christians," but McIntire instead used the Christian Beacon to attack members of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches
of which Ketcham was an influential leader. In 1971, all but two of the professors of Faith Seminary, including President Allen A. McRae, left over McIntire's alleged suppression of academic freedom and "oppressive leadership style." McIntire refused to participate in fundamentalist organizations which he could not dominate, even those led by other separatist fundamentalists of the period such as Bob Jones, Jr.
, and Ian Paisley
. Nevertheless, McIntire often inspired good-natured respect from some of the religious liberals whom he regularly picketed through the years; and his rhetoric, although sometimes bombastic, was rarely personal.
By the early 1970s, McIntire's ministries were debt-ridden and began to collapse one by one. In 1970, he owed the town of Cape May more than a half million dollars in back taxes. The buildings he had accumulated were sold or destroyed. By the time he died, at age 95, without a successor, virtually everything was gone. Even the shadow that remained of the Bible Presbyterian Church of Collingswood finally forced his resignation in 1999, after he had served the congregation for sixty years. In the words of Joel Belz
, founder of World
, McIntire was "a classic example of a brilliant and winsome man who chose his battles badly. Unyielding on petty issues, he divided where division was both unnecessary and costly to the very causes he championed. Too often, he seemed to love the fight more than the very valid issues over which the fights raged." McIntire had repeatedly criticized Princeton Theological Seminary
, an institution he had left in 1929, as a bastion of theological liberalism. Yet when Princeton honored him almost affectionately as a distinguished alumnus, McIntire responded to its overtures and donated his papers to the Seminary.
Bible Presbyterian Church
The Bible Presbyterian Church is an American Protestant denomination.-History:The Bible Presbyterian Church was formed in 1937, predominantly through the efforts of such conservative Presbyterian clergymen as Carl McIntire, J. Oliver Buswell and Allen A. MacRae. Francis Schaeffer was the first...
, founder and long president of the International Council of Christian Churches and the American Council of Christian Churches
American Council of Christian Churches
The American Council of Christian Churches was founded in 1941 under the leadership of Carl McIntire. McIntire and others created a fundamentalist organization set up in opposition to the Federal Council of Churches...
, and a popular religious radio broadcaster, who proudly identified himself as a fundamentalist.
Youth and education
Born in Ypsilanti, MichiganYpsilanti, Michigan
Ypsilanti is a city in Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 22,362. The city is bounded to the north by the Charter Township of Superior and on the west, south, and east by the Charter Township of Ypsilanti...
, Carl McIntire was the oldest of four children born to Charles Curtis McIntire, a Presbyterian minister and M.A. graduate of Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, and Hettie Hotchkin McIntire. McIntire's father pastored in Salt Lake City, but by 1912 he had suffered a mental breakdown and was hospitalized. He and his wife were divorced, and she raised the children alone in Durant, Oklahoma
Durant, Oklahoma
Durant is a city in Bryan County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 15,877 at the 2010 census. Durant is the principal city of the Durant Micropolitan Statistical Area, which had a population of 42,416 in 2010...
, where she served as Dean of Women at Southeastern State Teachers College (now Southeastern Oklahoma State University
Southeastern Oklahoma State University
Southeastern Oklahoma State University, often referred to as Southeastern and abbreviated as SE, or SOSU, is a public university located in Durant, Oklahoma, with an undergraduate enrollment of approximately 4,229 as of 2009.-History:...
). Carl McIntire completed high school in Durant and attended Southeastern State, where he became an award-winning intercollegiate debater and president of the student body during his final year. For his senior year, he transferred to Park College, Parkville, Missouri
Parkville, Missouri
Parkville is a city in Platte County, Missouri, United States. The population was 4,059 at the 2000 census. Parkville is known for its antique shops, art galleries, and historic downtown. The city is home to Park University and English Landing Park....
, where he received his B.A. degree before entering Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary is a theological seminary of the Presbyterian Church located in the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey in the United States...
, New Jersey, in 1928 to prepare for the Presbyterian ministry. Meanwhile he worked as a janitor and sold maps to farmers door-to-door in Caddo County, Oklahoma
Caddo County, Oklahoma
Caddo County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of 2000, the population was 30,150. Its county seat is Anadarko. It is named after the Caddo tribe who were settled here on the 1870s...
.
During the late 1920s, Princeton Seminary was embroiled in The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy that had disquieted the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America was a Presbyterian denomination in the United States. It was organized in 1789 under the leadership of John Witherspoon in the wake of the American Revolution and existed until 1958 when it merged with the United Presbyterian Church of North...
as well as other Protestant denominations. McIntire became a strong supporter of J. Gresham Machen, a conservative professor of New Testament. With Machen, McIntire opposed a reorganization of the seminary in 1929 that appeared to strengthen liberal elements in the church. He followed his mentor and three other professors from Princeton to the newly founded Westminster Theological Seminary
Westminster Theological Seminary
Westminster Theological Seminary is a Presbyterian and Reformed Christian graduate educational institution located in Glenside, Pennsylvania, with a satellite location in London.-History:...
, where he completed his Th.B. degree in 1931.
In May 1931, he married Fairy Eunice Davis of Paris, Texas
Paris, Texas
Paris, Texas is a city located northeast of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex in Lamar County, Texas, in the United States. It is situated in Northeast Texas at the western edge of the Piney Woods. Physiographically, these regions are part of the West Gulf Coastal Plain. In 1900, 9,358 people lived...
, whom he had met when they were both students at Southeastern, and who became a high school English teacher while he completed seminary. They had three children. After the death of Fairy Davis McIntire in 1992, McIntire married Alice Goff, a church office administrator with whom he had worked for many years.
Founding of the Bible Presbyterian Church
In 1931, McIntire was ordained into the ministry of the Presbyterian Church USA, serving for two years at Chelsea Presbyterian Church, Atlantic City, New JerseyAtlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...
. In 1933, he was called to the Presbyterian Church of Collingswood, New Jersey
Collingswood, New Jersey
Collingswood is a borough in Camden County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 13,926....
, near Philadelphia, the largest church in the West Jersey Presbytery. McIntire remained a resident of Collingswood
Collingswood, New Jersey
Collingswood is a borough in Camden County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 13,926....
for the rest of his life. The Women's Missionary Society of the Collingswood church called his attention to what they perceived as a modernist perspective in the missions study book, which had been promoted by the denomination's Board of Foreign Missions. McIntire joined the conservative side in the on-going Fundamentalist-Modernist debate, and in 1934, at Machen's invitation, he became a founding member of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions
Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions
Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions is a small, independent Presbyterian mission agency, which early in its history became the missions board of the Bible Presbyterian Church. Founded in 1933 by J. Gresham Machen, the IBPFM played a significant role in the Fundamentalist-Modernist...
, an agency organized as an alternative to the denominational mission board that the conservatives claimed supported theologically liberal missionaries. The Presbyterian Church treated the new board as a challenge to its authority and demanded that the clergymen resign. After they refused, Machen, McIntire, and seven other clergymen were tried by an ecclesiastical court in 1935-36. The board members lost, and they renounced the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church, as did the Collingswood Presbyterian Church, only a tiny minority of whose members refused to support their young pastor.
In 1936 McIntire joined Machen and others to found the Presbyterian Church of America, later renamed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church is a conservative Presbyterian denomination located primarily in the United States. It was founded by conservative members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America who strongly objected to the pervasive Modernist theology during the 1930s . Led...
. The new church attracted supporters from other Reformed traditions, complicating the church's effort to define itself. A debate soon emerged in the young denomination over eschatology
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
, Presbyterian traditions, the use of alcohol and tobacco, and the place of political activity in the church. McIntire and others left in 1937 to form the Bible Presbyterian Church
Bible Presbyterian Church
The Bible Presbyterian Church is an American Protestant denomination.-History:The Bible Presbyterian Church was formed in 1937, predominantly through the efforts of such conservative Presbyterian clergymen as Carl McIntire, J. Oliver Buswell and Allen A. MacRae. Francis Schaeffer was the first...
, which emphasized Fundamentalist distinctives in contrast to continental Reformed traditions, supporting political involvement, the Scofield Reference Bible
Scofield Reference Bible
The Scofield Reference Bible is a widely circulated study Bible edited and annotated by the American Bible student Cyrus I. Scofield, that popularized dispensationalism at the beginning of the 20th century...
, a premillennialist view of eschatology, and abstinence from the use of tobacco and alcohol.
In April 1938, after the Collingswood church lost a civil suit over control of its church property, the congregation walked out en masse from their impressive Gothic building and followed McIntire to a huge tent erected several blocks east on the main street at Haddon Avenue and Cuthbert Boulevard. In May 1938, the congregation moved into a wooden "Tabernacle," and in November 1957, into a neo-colonial church building with a tall, Wren steeple. The church seated more than a thousand. A Sunday School was constructed on the location of the previous tent, and the revamped Tabernacle became an activity center.
Christian Beacon
In February 1936, during the series of ecclesiastical trials, McIntire launched a weekly newspaper, The Christian Beacon to give greater voice to his message. The Collingswood church had already printed many of his sermons, and its church services had been broadcast over the radio in the Philadelphia region. Over the next four decades, McIntire published twelve books, and hundreds of pamphlets, booklets, sermons, speeches, and documentary portfolios. As Joel Carpenter has written, McIntire was "a gifted publicist," and his Christian Beacon was a "widely read organ of separatist opinion in which McIntire practiced his talent for sensational and aggressive religious journalism."Twentieth-Century Reformation Hour
In March 1955, McIntire initiated a daily thirty-minute radio program, "The Twentieth Century Reformation Hour," which featured McIntire's commentary on religious and political affairs. The radio program generally began with a homily from the Bible, followed by a monologue by McIntire on a wide range of subjects, including apostasy in mainline churches, liberalism in government, opposition to coexistence with communism, and cultural issues of the moment, including gambling, sex education, socialized medicineSocialized medicine
Socialized medicine is a term used to describe a system for providing medical and hospital care for all at a nominal cost by means of government regulation of health services and subsidies derived from taxation. It is used primarily and usually pejoratively in United States political debates...
, and fluoridation of the water. An associate pastor of the Collingswood church, Charles Richter, known to listeners as "Amen Charlie," regularly "amened" his support of McIntire's statements. During the 1960s, the program may have been heard on as many as 600 radio stations—although McIntire's inaccuracy with numbers became legendary. In 1965, McIntire effectively purchased radio station, WXUR, Media, Pennsylvania
Media, Pennsylvania
The borough of Media is the county seat of Delaware County, Pennsylvania and is located west of Philadelphia. Media was incorporated in 1850 at the same time that it was named the county seat. The population was 5,533 at the 2000 census. Its school district is the Rose Tree Media School District...
, although it was formally owned by Faith Theological Seminary.
Bible conference centers
McIntire's outreach included an interest in promoting summer Bible conferences, a common method of evangelization and Bible teaching among American Protestants during the early twentieth century. In 1941, McIntire took a leading role in acquiring and operating Harvey Cedars Bible ConferenceHarvey Cedars Bible Conference
Harvey Cedars Bible Conference is a building complex of the Presbyterian denomination, in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey, including a hotel, a dock and sport facilities.-History:...
on the Jersey shore at Harvey Cedars, New Jersey
Harvey Cedars, New Jersey
Harvey Cedars is a Borough in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the borough population was 337. The borough borders the Atlantic Ocean on Long Beach Island....
(1941–56). After the Bible Presbyterian denomination underwent its first split in the latter year, McIntire's organization purchased the historic Admiral Hotel in Cape May, New Jersey
Cape May, New Jersey
Cape May is a city at the southern tip of Cape May Peninsula in Cape May County, New Jersey, where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean and is one of the country's oldest vacation resort destinations. It is part of the Ocean City Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 United States...
in 1962, and founded the Christian Admiral Bible Conference and Freedom Center. McIntire added a number of distressed properties to his holdings, becoming an unwitting preservationist as he prevented outmoded structures—the most notable being the nineteenth-century Windsor and Congress Hall
Congress Hall (Cape May hotel)
Congress Hall is a historic hotel in Cape May, New Jersey occupying a city block bordered on the south by Beach Avenue and on the east by Washington Street Mall....
hotels—from being destroyed to make room for motels. The conference itself contributed to the revival of Cape May as a summer resort. In 1971, McIntire also developed a Bible conference in Cape Canavaral, Florida.
Church councils
During the 1940s, McIntire's influence expanded throughout the United States and overseas. In 1941, he helped create the American Council of Christian ChurchesAmerican Council of Christian Churches
The American Council of Christian Churches was founded in 1941 under the leadership of Carl McIntire. McIntire and others created a fundamentalist organization set up in opposition to the Federal Council of Churches...
(ACCC) as a conservative alternative to the liberal Federal (later, National) Council of Churches
National Council of Churches
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA is an ecumenical partnership of 37 Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member denominations, churches, conventions, and archdioceses include Mainline Protestant, Orthodox, African American, Evangelical, and historic peace...
(NCC). In 1948, he likewise helped to found the International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC) to challenge the World Council of Churches
World Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches is a worldwide fellowship of 349 global, regional and sub-regional, national and local churches seeking unity, a common witness and Christian service. It is a Christian ecumenical organization that is based in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland...
(WCC). McIntire was elected first President of the ICCC and was reelected at each World Congress until he died. He and his wife, Fairy, traveled around the world scores of times both to encourage evangelical Christians abroad and to demonstrate his opposition to the World Council of Churches. (During McIntire's long presidency, the headquarters of the ICCC were located in Amsterdam, and J. C. Maris served as General Secretary.)
Educational institutions
McIntire promoted several educational ministries. The Sunday School and the Summer Bible School of the Collingswood church were large and active. (The Summer Bible School of the Collingswood church—McIntire disliked the term "Vacation Bible School"—ran for four weeks rather than the typical one week of most churches during the period.) McIntire also gained control of the National Bible Institute in New York City and transformed the school into a liberal arts college, Shelton College, which moved to the "Skylands" estate in Ringwood, New JerseyRingwood, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there are 12,396 people, 4,108 households, and 3,446 families residing in the borough. The population density is 491.0 people per square mile . There are 4,221 housing units at an average density of 167.2 per square mile...
, in 1953. In 1964, the college moved to Cape May, and closed in the 1980s after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a decision of the New Jersey Department of Higher Education that forbade Shelton from granting degrees. Faith Theological Seminary
Faith Theological Seminary
Faith Theological Seminary is an conservative, evangelical Christian seminary founded in 1937 in Baltimore, Maryland. Originally located in Wilmington, Delaware, it moved to Philadelphia in 1952, then to its current location in Maryland in 2004. It was founded amidst the Fundamentalist-Modernist...
, organized in 1937 as an independent school associated with the Bible Presbyterian denomination, later occupied Lynnewood Hall
Lynnewood Hall
Lynnewood Hall is a 110-room Neoclassical Revival mansion in Elkins Park, Montgomery County designed by architect Horace Trumbauer for industrialist Peter A. B. Widener between 1897 and 1900...
, the Gilded Age estate of P.A.B. Widener in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania
Elkins Park, Pennsylvania
Elkins Park is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is split between Cheltenham and Abington Townships in the suburbs of Philadelphia, roughly from Center City, Philadelphia.-Points of interest:...
. McIntire and west coast supporters of the Bible Presbyterian Church founded Highland College in Pasadena, California, a small Christian liberal arts college, and remained associated with the college until 1956.
Religious emphases
McIntire considered himself to be first of all a pastor and preacher. His sermons were frequently exegetical, and he often proceeded systematically through particular books of the Bible. He urged his congregation to read the Bible through every year. For McIntire the term Fundamentalist included attachment to the fundamentals of the historic Christian religion as defined by the Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Confession of Faith
The Westminster Confession of Faith is a Reformed confession of faith, in the Calvinist theological tradition. Although drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly, largely of the Church of England, it became and remains the 'subordinate standard' of doctrine in the Church of Scotland, and has been...
, the doctrinal standard of the Presbyterian Church and by the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed
Nicene Creed
The Nicene Creed is the creed or profession of faith that is most widely used in Christian liturgy. It is called Nicene because, in its original form, it was adopted in the city of Nicaea by the first ecumenical council, which met there in the year 325.The Nicene Creed has been normative to the...
. He was a Calvinist who believed that John Calvin's
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
Institutes of the Christian Religion
Institutes of the Christian Religion
The Institutes of the Christian Religion is John Calvin's seminal work on Protestant systematic theology...
, the Westminster Confession, and the Shorter and Larger Westminster Catechism
Westminster Catechism
Westminster Catechism may refer to:*Westminster Shorter Catechism*Westminster Larger Catechism...
s were the finest articulations of the Christian faith.
McIntire emphasized the doctrine of separation, which he based on 2 Corinthians 6:17: "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." To McIntire, separation emphasized the purity of the church in opposition to apostasy, the falling away from the historic Christian faith in which he believed theological liberals to be engaged. Like other fundamentalists of the period, McIntire also separated from evangelical groups, such as the National Association of Evangelicals
National Association of Evangelicals
The National Association of Evangelicals is a fellowship of member denominations, churches, organizations, and individuals. Its goal is to honor God by connecting and representing evangelicals in the United States. Today it works in four main areas: Church & Faith Partners, Government Relations,...
(NAE), which he believed had compromised with the liberalism of the National Council of Churches. He early rejected the Neo-evangelicalism of Billy Graham
Billy Graham
William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian evangelist. As of April 25, 2010, when he met with Barack Obama, Graham has spent personal time with twelve United States Presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman, and is number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for...
even before Graham's New York City Evangelistic Crusade of 1957, because Graham's organization had accepted the support of those McIntire regarded as liberals.
In the public eye
Although his Oklahoma family had voted Democratic, McIntire eventually became a conservative Republican. Before and during World War II, McIntire opposed Nazi totalitarianism and anti-semitismAnti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
, and afterwards he became a champion of anti-Communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
and especially one who attacked Communist control of religion in the Soviet Union. McIntire argued that although America had once honored God and freedom, it was in danger of losing its heritage. On his radio program, McIntire often repeated the slogan, "Freedom is everybody's business, your business, my business, the church's business, and a man who will not use his freedom to defend his freedom, does not deserve his freedom."
McIntire attracted considerable public attention through his public demonstrations, early gaining a feel for gestures that attracted popular notice. For instance, in 1947, he unsuccessfully opposed a revised New Jersey state constitution in a radio address entitled, "The Governor's Kittens," while he (more-or-less) held a cat and kittens before the microphone. McIntire attended virtually every important meeting of the World Council of Churches
World Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches is a worldwide fellowship of 349 global, regional and sub-regional, national and local churches seeking unity, a common witness and Christian service. It is a Christian ecumenical organization that is based in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland...
wherever its meetings were held and usually mounted demonstrations with placards outside the meeting hall, calling attention to what he regarded as the WCC's religious apostasy or its collaboration with Russian clergy who he believed were KGB operatives.
His radio station, WXUR, became engaged in a running battle with the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
over the then-applicable “fairness doctrine,” by which radio stations had to provide varied political views to retain their licenses. When the FCC refused to renew the WXUR license and the station was forced off the air in 1973, McIntire demonstrated his theatrical flair by holding a "funeral" for the station (complete with coffin) while dressed as John Witherspoon
John Witherspoon
John Witherspoon was a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of New Jersey. As president of the College of New Jersey , he trained many leaders of the early nation and was the only active clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration...
, a Presbyterian pastor and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
After a supporter purchased for McIntire a World War II vintage wooden-hulled Navy minesweeper named Oceanic (which McIntire renamed Columbus), he tried to broadcast outside the three-mile limit near Cape May
Cape May, New Jersey
Cape May is a city at the southern tip of Cape May Peninsula in Cape May County, New Jersey, where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean and is one of the country's oldest vacation resort destinations. It is part of the Ocean City Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 United States...
, calling the floating station "Radio Free America." The station began broadcasting at 12:22 PM Eastern Time on September 19, 1973, but was only on the air for ten hours—the ship began to smoke from the heat of the antenna feeder line, and the signal interfered with that of radio station WHLW in Lakewood, New Jersey which broadcast on a neighboring frequency of 1170 kHz. Nevertheless, the notion of a Christian pirate radio station
Pirate radio in North America
The strict definition of a pirate radio station is a station that operates from sovereign territory without a broadcasting license, or just beyond the territorial waters of a sovereign nation from on board a ship or other marine structure with the intention of broadcasting to that nation without...
off the United States caught the attention of the media. "I became a very famous man out of that," McIntire later recalled, "People stood along the coast to see me. It was a crazy thing to do, but it was dramatic."
McIntire also gained the public eye in the early 1970s when he organized a half dozen pro-Vietnam War “Victory Marches” in Washington, D.C. The march of October 3, 1970 was supposed to have featured South Vietnamese vice-president Nguyen Cao Ky
Nguyen Cao Ky
Nguyễn Cao Kỳ served as the chief of the Vietnam Air Force in the 1960s, before leading the nation as the prime minister of South Vietnam in a military junta from 1965 to 1967...
, but the Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
administration ensured that Ky would not be present.
More than once McIntire's sense of the dramatic passed over into the risible, as for instance, when he urged in 1971 that a full-scale version of the Temple of Jerusalem
Temple in Jerusalem
The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...
be constructed in Florida or two decades later when he suggested that Noah's ark
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...
be rebuilt and perhaps refloated off his conference center in Cape May. "It would be a tourist attraction," said McIntire of the latter, "and it would forever down these liberals." In 1970, when gay activists proposed "Stonewall Nation,"
Stonewall Nation
Stonewall Nation was the informal name given to a proposition by gay activists to establish a separatist community in Alpine County, California in 1970...
the takeover of sparsely populated Alpine County, California
Alpine County, California
Alpine County is the smallest county, by population, in the U.S. state of California. As of 2010, it had a population of 1,175, all rural. There are no incorporated cities in the county. The county seat is Markleeville...
, McIntire announced that he would counteract the plan by having his followers move to the area in trailers. Neither the activists nor McIntire did anything of the sort.
Later life
McIntire could combine gravitasGravitas
Gravitas was one of the Roman virtues, along with pietas, dignitas and virtus. It may be translated variously as weight, seriousness, dignity, or importance, and connotes a certain substance or depth of personality.-See also:*Auctoritas...
with a populist appeal to what he called “the grass roots.” A gifted preacher when he chose to be, he seemed to prefer dabbling in politics to Bible exposition. A man who inspired listeners and easily raised money for his various ministries, McIntire had few trustworthy associates to manage the day-to-day activities of his ramshackle empire. Nor could he brook sharing power. In the 1960s his long-time friend and fellow fundamentalist, Robert T. Ketcham
Robert T. Ketcham
Robert Thomas Ketcham was a Baptist pastor, a leader of separationist fundamentalism, and a founder of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches.-Youth:...
, pleaded with McIntire to "be more gracious in his dealings with other Christians," but McIntire instead used the Christian Beacon to attack members of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches
General Association of Regular Baptist Churches
The General Association of Regular Baptist Churches is one of several Baptist groups in North America retaining the name "Regular Baptist"....
of which Ketcham was an influential leader. In 1971, all but two of the professors of Faith Seminary, including President Allen A. McRae, left over McIntire's alleged suppression of academic freedom and "oppressive leadership style." McIntire refused to participate in fundamentalist organizations which he could not dominate, even those led by other separatist fundamentalists of the period such as Bob Jones, Jr.
Bob Jones, Jr.
Robert Reynolds Jones, Jr. was the second president and chancellor of Bob Jones University. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Jones was the son of Bob Jones, Sr., the university's founder...
, and Ian Paisley
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, PC is a politician and church minister in Northern Ireland. As the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party , he and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively on 8 May 2007.In addition to co-founding...
. Nevertheless, McIntire often inspired good-natured respect from some of the religious liberals whom he regularly picketed through the years; and his rhetoric, although sometimes bombastic, was rarely personal.
By the early 1970s, McIntire's ministries were debt-ridden and began to collapse one by one. In 1970, he owed the town of Cape May more than a half million dollars in back taxes. The buildings he had accumulated were sold or destroyed. By the time he died, at age 95, without a successor, virtually everything was gone. Even the shadow that remained of the Bible Presbyterian Church of Collingswood finally forced his resignation in 1999, after he had served the congregation for sixty years. In the words of Joel Belz
Joel Belz
Joel Belz is the founder of God's World Publications in 1977, which includes the World Journalism Institute started in 1999 and WORLD Magazine, a biweekly Christian newsmagazine, in 1986.-Personal life:...
, founder of World
World (magazine)
WORLD Magazine is a biweekly Christian news magazine, published in the United States of America by God's World Publications, a non-profit 501 organization based in Asheville, North Carolina. WORLD differs from most other news magazines in that its declared perspective is one of conservative...
, McIntire was "a classic example of a brilliant and winsome man who chose his battles badly. Unyielding on petty issues, he divided where division was both unnecessary and costly to the very causes he championed. Too often, he seemed to love the fight more than the very valid issues over which the fights raged." McIntire had repeatedly criticized Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary is a theological seminary of the Presbyterian Church located in the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey in the United States...
, an institution he had left in 1929, as a bastion of theological liberalism. Yet when Princeton honored him almost affectionately as a distinguished alumnus, McIntire responded to its overtures and donated his papers to the Seminary.
Further reading
- CarlMcIntire.org, includes many primary and secondary sources about McIntire.
- International Council of Christian Churches website.
- K. C. Quek, ed., The McIntire Memorial: Carl McIntire, 1906-2002 (Seoul, Korea: Truth & Freedom Publishing Company, 2005).
- Margaret G. Harden, comp., A Brief History of the Bible Presbyterian Church and Its Agencies, (privately published, [1966]).
- The Bible Presbyterian Church of Collingswood: for the Glory of God (Collingswood BPC, 1957).
- 40 Years...Carl McIntire and the Bible Presbyterian Church of Collingswood, 1933-1973, written by Ethel Rink (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1973).
- Carl McIntire's 50-Year Ministry in the Bible Presbyterian Church of Collingswood, New Jersey (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1983).
- ICCC Silver Jubilee, 1948-1973 (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1973).
- John Fea, "Carl McIntire: From Fundamentalist Presbyterian to Presbyterian Fundamentalist," American Presbyterian 72:4 (Winter 1994), 253-68.
- Heather Hendershot, "God's Angriest Man: Carl McIntire, Cold War Fundamentalism, and Right-Wing Broadcasting," American Quarterly, 59 (June 2007), 373-96.
- Heather Hendershot, What's Fair on the Air? Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest (University of Chicago Press, 2011).
- Douglas Martin, “Carl McIntire, 95, Evangelist and Patriot, Dies,” New York Times, March 22, 2002.
- David O. Beale, In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850 (Greenville, S.C.: Unusual Publications, 1986), 323-30.
- Shelley Baranowski, “Carl McIntire,” in Charles Lippy, ed., Twentieth-Century Shapers of American Religion (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989), 256-63.
Books by Carl McIntire
- A Cloud of Witnesses or Heroes of the Faith (Philadelphia: Pinebrook Press, 1938; second edition, Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1965), sermons on Hebrews 11:1-12:2
- Twentieth Century Reformation (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1944)
- The Rise of the Tyrant: Controlled Economy vs Private Enterprise (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1945)
- Author of Liberty (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1946; second edition, 1963)
- For Such a Time as This: The Book of Esther (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1946) – sermons
- Modern Tower of Babel (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1949
- Better Than Seven Sons (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1954) – sermons on the Book of Ruth
- The Wall of Jerusalem Also Is Broken Down (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1954) – sermons on the Book of Nehemiah
- Servants of Apostasy (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1955)
- The Epistle of Apostasy: the Book of Jude (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1958) – sermons
- The Death of the Church (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1967)
- Outside the Gate (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1967)