The “Thomas” in the W. H. Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectureship -- By: John D. Hannah

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 163:649 (Jan 2006)
Article: The “Thomas” in the W. H. Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectureship
Author: John D. Hannah


The “Thomas” in the W. H. Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectureship

John D. Hannah

John D. Hannah is Distinguished Professor of Historical Theology and Research Professor of Theological Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.

Lewis Sperry Chafer met William Henry Griffith Thomas in 1903 when Thomas, evangelical Anglican pastor of St. Paul’s, Portman Square, London, arrived at Dwight L. Moody’s popular Spiritual Life Conference in Northfield, Massachusetts.1 Their two lives bore some similarities, but the contrasts would have been more immediately impressive. The twenty-nine-year-old Chafer had first come to Northfield in 1901, using it as his summer home, a residence in the off season when there were few calls for his specialty, the work of conference evangelism.2 There he owned a farm, complete with a field manager who counted bushels of corn and apples, and a home freshly purchased for a below-market price from A. T. Pierson. The latter was anxious to sell his farm because he had been appointed to succeed Charles Haddon Spurgeon at the tabernacle in Southwark, London.3

Two Remarkable Careers

At this time Chafer was only beginning to enter the larger world of North American evangelicalism, emerging gradually through the “university of adversity and travail.” Though he had attended the

Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, for three nonconsecutive semesters and dreamed of advanced voice studies in Milan, Italy, lack of funds prevented his attaining a degree.4 Initially traveling with evangelists as a manual laborer and soloist, he entered the world of conference evangelism after his marriage in 1896 with his musically talented wife, Ella Loraine Case. His ordination in 1900 brought him formally into the world of New England Congregationalism, the denomination of his church-planting father, and, most importantly, to the interdenominationalism of Moody’s famous conference center. In contrast, the forty-two-year-old Griffith Thomas came to Northfield known for his scholarly acumen, pastoral gifts, godly demeanor, and teaching talent.

Chafer was born in the modest home of a Congregationalist pastor and had the benefit of caring parents who pointed him to the Savior at a young age. But Chafer’s serene childhood was shattered by the wrenching cough of his father that brought him to an early grave and the subsequent financial exigencies that threatened the fami...

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