W.A. Criswell (1909-2002)

Wallie Amos Criswell was an American pastor, author and a twice elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from 1968-1970. He became widely known for his expository biblical preaching. He is regarded as a key figure in the late 1970s’ Conservative Resurgence’ within the S BC.

W. A. Criswell only gained his first names until some years later. He was registered at birth as W.A.Criswell. Government officials wanted first names for his passport-he was given his father’s names of Wallie Amos…

He grew up in poverty. His father was a cowboy -barber and barely earned a living. After learning to read books and ideas came to interest and excite him.

Aged 10 he was converted and became an evangelical Baptist. Aged 12 he was ‘called’ to the ministry. He studied at Baylor University in Waco, Texas He continued his ministry training at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in theology.
While studying he ministered at 4 churches.

He took his first ministry roll, at Chickasha, Oklahoma (1937). He moved on to Muskogee in1941. He moved on to the First Baptist Church (FBC) in Dallas
( 1944 -1993) to replace George Washington Truett.

In the next 50 years the membership grew from 7,800 to 26,000. Sunday School attendance was 5,000+. The church expanded to multiple buildings- it became the largest Southern Baptist church in the world. Billy Graham joined the church in 1953.

W.A. was an early pioneer of the modern mega church phenomenon. ( See First Baptist Church of Dallas paragraphs).

The most significant impact of W.A/ preaching was to foster expositional preaching within the SBC and beyond. In 1946 he began an expository preaching tour through the whole Bible beginning with Genisis and ending with Revelation- it took 17 i/2 years. When he announced his intention there were many ‘nay sayers’ but the church expanded and the ministries flourished.
( See Preaching para 2)
W.A. published 54 books ( See ‘Selected works’)

In 1988 W.A. requested a search party to find his replacement- he was approaching 80. In 1900 Joel C. Gregory became pastor, W.A. took the title ‘Senior Pastor’. It did not work out - Gregory resigned in 1992. In 1993 O.S. Hawkins was appointed and W.R. entered semi-retirement. He kept himself busy around the church for the next 7 years.

He died at the home of a long time friend, Jack Pogue on January 10th 2002, aged 92. His death made national headlines -the city of Dallas closed off the U.S. -75 for the celebrated pastor’s funeral cortege.

In his book The Purpose Driven Church , pastor and author, Rick Warren describes Wallie Amos Criswell as the greatest American pastor of the twentieth century. ( See ’ Influence’)

Sources used
Preaching
Baptist History Homepage
wikipedia