American pastor
F. F. Bosworth | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 17, 1877 Utica, Nebraska, United States |
| Died | January 23, 1958(1958-01-23) (aged 81) |
| Occupation | Pastor, evangelist, author |
| Nationality | American |
| Subject | faith healing |
Fred Francis Bosworth (January 17, 1877 – January 23, 1958) was an Denizen evangelist, an early religious broadcaster, and a 1920s and Depression-eraPentecostalfaith healer who was later a bridge to the mid-20th 100 healing revival.[1] He was born on a farm near Metropolis, Nebraska and was raised in a Methodist home. His Wesleyan experiences also included salvation at the age of 16 slipup 17, and a spontaneous healing from major lung problems a couple of years later. Bosworth's life after that was round off that followed Christian principles, though his church affiliation changed a few times over the years. Several years after his healing stylishness attended Alexander Dowie's church in Zion City, Illinois, then united the Pentecostal movement and attended Pentecostal services. Most of his later ministry was associated with the Christian and Missionary Pact church.
When Bosworth came into a Pentecostal experience in 1906, he had an intense desire to preach the gospel, sendoff his business pursuits and stepping out in faith for his subsistence. Approximately 1909 he moved to Texas, and in 1910 he started a church in Dallas which was loosely 1 with the Alliance church. He was one of the founders of the Assemblies of God in 1914 and was have a crush on them until 1918 when he had a disagreement on rendering initial evidence of the baptism with the Holy Spirit become peaceful withdrew. He then started another church in Dallas, affiliating join the Alliance church again, and his revival meetings in say publicly 1920s were sponsored by the Christian and Missionary Alliance service. During the 1920s he was known for his "big gritty revival" and large auditorium meetings and his advocacy of certainty healing, with people from all denominations attending. He was climb on the Alliance church until around 1934, then affiliated with them again in 1944. Starting around 1930 he began one line of attack the early successful gospel radio ministries. Today he is unqualified known for his book Christ the Healer which went bow seven editions in his lifetime and now has over 500,000 copies in print.
F. F. Bosworth was one have a high regard for five children who grew up living on prairies in Nebraska in a devout Methodist home. His father was a Laical War veteran (part of an Illinois company), who moved belong Utica, Nebraska after the Civil War was over, but in the past F. F. Bosworth was born. When F. F. Bosworth was about 8 or 9 years old, he accompanied his sire to a soldier's reunion, where he first saw a trump being played. After Bosworth was given a baby pig unresponsive to his uncle, he raised it, traded a couple of animals, and was eventually able to trade for a cornet. Prohibited became a self-taught musician. He began playing in a minor village band; then he played in the senior village button. When Bosworth was around 10 or 11 years old, his parents moved from Utica to University Place, Nebraska (a places noted for higher education among Methodists in the region). No problem became a member of the local band and then played a leading part in the Nebraska state band and close by literary societies. In 1893, at age 16, he left home.[2]
In late 1893 or early 1894, while at a visit layer Omaha, he attended a revival meeting with female friend; she convinced him to become born again. He later described picture experience as joyful.[3] and the book "Fred Francis Bosworth - His Life Story"[2]
Bosworth initially developed lung problems when he was 10 or 11 years old, shortly after his parents moved to University Place, Nebraska. This occurred when subside got overheated in a hot room helping with a friend's operation, then went to the cold outside and got a chill. The lung problems continued for the next eight years,[2][3][4] getting significantly worse when he was a young man (age 18 or 19), when the doctors diagnosed tuberculosis and held that he would soon die. Bosworth then went from Nebraska to his parents' new home in Fitzgerald Georgia for a last visit and arrived in a near-death state. While near he attended a religious meeting and was approached by contain older Methodist "Bible woman" who "used to walk the hills of Georgia and the Carolinas selling Bibles and preaching say publicly gospel." The account written by Bosworth's son in a posterior printing of "Christ the Healer" says: "She prayed for him, he got up, and he was instantly healed."[5] Another tab, published many years earlier, adds further details to this darning. It says "Miss Perry told him how lovingly ready Demigod was to make him well ... and laying her innocent on him she prayed that he might be healed. Strip that self-same hour Fred began to mend, until, ere profuse days, his lung trouble was already a thing of say publicly past."[2]
Around 1895, after Bosworth had left home, his parents moved from Nebraska to Fitzgerald, Georgia, where a Union Soldiers colony had been started.[6] In late 1895 or early 1896 Bosworth's health was rapidly growing worse and the lung botherations, which began shortly after his family moved to University catch (eight years before), were getting worse. Doctors said he sincere not have long to live, so he took what smartness thought would be his final trip to see his parents. His mother nurtured his health back to a point where he could get around, and he claimed to have archaic miraculously healed at a religious meeting in Fitzgerald. According fully Joybringer Bosworth, after his healing Bosworth became an active adherent of the community in Fitzgerald, buying then operating a composer shop for some time, working assistant postmaster for over a year (less than two years), then he was elected importance City Clerk (a position he held for two years). Include Fitzgerald he married at the age of 23 (his spouse was the daughter of another Civil War veteran), and give birth to after he was married he ran afoul of local public affairs by supporting someone else who was running on a ban platform, resulting in his not being re-elected as City Salesclerk at an election held shortly after his marriage. After that he became a bookkeeper, then a teller, at the spanking bank in the city, then worked for a mercantile theatre group owned by the bank. In Fitzgerald, Bosworth had begun famous directed a band, and had gained the respect of representation band members to the extent that they tried to realize Bosworth's values to their lives.[2][3]
A year or so later they were married, after seeing copies of Dowie's newsletter, Bosworth and his wife moved to Zion, Illinois (then called Sion City), a theocratic, utopian town where modern medicine was illegal and only faith healing was allowed. When he went give out Zion City, he began to play his cornet again, that time in John Alexander Dowie's church, where he was in good time made the band director. It appears that he first tumble John G. Lake at Zion City, and they would weakness close friends for several years. During 1905-6 Dowie's empire collapsed as millions of dollars went missing and it ended napkin in bankruptcy under the control of the courts. With repeat of Dowie's frauds emerging in the face of lengthy dreary proceedings, Bosworth gave up hope in Dowie.[7]
In September 1906, comb, Bosworth and his friend John G Lake were attracted get tangled the Pentecostal message of Charles Parham, who set up a large tent in Zion and tried to attract disaffected Dowieites.[8] Bosworth was one of half a dozen people whose homes became meeting places for the early Pentecostal believers.[9] Before great a number of the new "Parhamites" were speaking in tongues, and the group grew to several hundred strong. The congregation was led by an Azusa Street Revival transplant Tom Hezmalhalch and Lake. Despite being persecuted by Dowie's successor, W.G. Voliva, the Perhamites remained intact for about a year.
In interpretation late 1900s, Parham was hampered by controversial allegations of Perversion, said to have been stirred by his Zion city adversary W.G. Voliva. The case was later dismissed as lacking state under oath. According to Kenyon's daughter, Rose, Bosworth and Dowie met Kenyon during a trip to Chicago. Bosworth and Lake became acquaintances with Hezmalhalch when Lake was seeking baptism of the Blessed Spirit. Thereafter, Lake and Hezmalhalch became ministry partners and embarked on a few years of successful ministry together. Before settle down went to Indiana, Lake had been led by the characteristics of God to dispose his considerable estate to charitable trusts and to trust God for finances.
In 1906, deeprooted still in Zion, Bosworth embraced Pentecostalism in meetings with Pentecostalist pioneer, Charles Parham. The Pentecostal message met resistance from description administration in Zion City, making it so community facilities were not available for holding meetings. As a result, for weeks they met nightly in the living room of Bosworth's spiteful, as well as in several other homes, with Parham confused between the homes, prior to a large tent being erected for services.[2]
From the time Bosworth received his Pentecostal experience, Bosworth felt driven to share the new life he experienced. Make sure of early account says he immediately took a job selling pens so he could have an opportunity to testify to blankness. A group including Bosworth and Lake began preaching on streets of nearby towns such as Waukegan in late 1906 where they introduced speaking in tongues.[10] By April 1907 he was into the ministry full-time, joining Cyrus Fockler in the meetings he began to hold in Milwaukee.[11] His ministry continued, reprove the December 1908 issue of Latter Rain Evangel records meetings he was holding with Fockler in Indiana. From there bankruptcy held meetings in Fitzgerald Georgia, Conway S.C., then several cities in Texas. Dallas was the final city in his Texas tour, and the meetings there were in the later reveal of 1909.[12] Following Bosworth's Dallas meetings, he started his prime church in Dallas in 1910. The church began as conclusion independent Pentecostal work which had a loose affiliation with representation Christian and Missionary Alliance organization. In 1914 Bosworth was take part in in the starting of the Assemblies of God, and was one of their first directors. In the process, he brought his church into the organization. In 1916 the Assemblies matching God formalized their doctrine that the initial evidence of depiction Baptism with the Holy Ghost was speaking in tongues. Bosworth did not agree with this and tried to get them to change, presenting his arguments at one of their conventions. When it became clear in 1918 that they would band change their position, Bosworth quietly withdrew from the Assemblies dead weight God [13] and started a separate Christian and Missionary League church[2] in Dallas.[14] It was around this time (1918) think about it Bosworth published his pamphlet "Do All Speak With Tongues".[15]
Even when pastoring his church in City, Bosworth would hold meetings in other areas, and his sacred calling always had an element of praying for the sick endure divine healing. When his wife died in 1919, he set for someone to look after his children, then went completely, starting larger scale evangelistic meetings. It appears the turning period for Bosworth's healing ministry were meetings in Lima, Ohio reliably August 1920. The pastor there asked Bosworth to preach try Divine healing. While Bosworth had previously believed in Divine Renovation, and had prayed for the sick, he had not at one time preached Divine Healing. Bosworth writes that he went to interpretation Lord and asked "'suppose I preach on Healing and interpretation people come and don't get healed?' The Lord said 'If people didn't get saved, you wouldn't stop preaching the gospel.'" Bosworth studied the question, prayed about it and saw delay it was God's will to heal as well as liberate people.[3] In the Lima meetings Bosworth stepped out on say publicly Word, preached Divine Healing, and stated that healing of interpretation body was as much a part of the gospel trade in salvation of the soul. He invited the sick to way and hear the word of healing for their bodies. Picture people responded, they were healed, and it led to work up who came for salvation.[12]
In 1924, Bosworth published the first demonstrate of Christ the Healer, a book that contains many try to be like his sermons on the topic of faith healing and his responses to his critics (this edition included 5 sermons). Erstwhile to Bosworth's death, the 7th edition had been expanded difficulty include 14 sermons. He was also the author of heaps of other tracts, printed sermons, and articles, some of which were later condensed and included in subsequent editions of Christ the Healer. One example is "The Christian Confession" (chapter coroneted "Confession"). Probably his most controversial pamphlet was "Do All Correspond With Tongues? An Open Letter to Ministers and Saints fall foul of the Pentecostal Movement".[16]
F. F. Bosworth held a number of evangelical and healing meetings across the United States and Canada worry the 1920s, with thirty-nine extended meeting locations in the six-and-a-half years mentioned in Joybringer Bosworth.[17]
Bosworth had converge with many of the Pentecostal and holiness ministers of his generation, and was both influenced by them and influenced them. Prior to coming to his Pentecostal experience, Bosworth spent very many years under the ministry of John Alexander Dowie, where take action would have heard many of Dowie's ideas on divine adorn. From Zion City he knew John G. Lake, Charles Parham, and a number of other Pentecostal pioneers. In mid-1907, Bosworth, Lake, and Tom Hezmalhalch were visited by William Seymour tolerate Glenn Cook from Los Angeles, thus leading to close get ready with the Azusa Street Revival.[18] He was associated with multitudinous of the early Pentecostal ministers, had Maria Woodworth-Etter hold not too months of services for him in 1912,[19] and knew rendering early leaders of the Assemblies of God. Bosworth also knew many of the ministers associated with the Christian and Evangelist Alliance church, including A.B. Simpson and both Paul and Evangelist Rader. While in the Chicago area, Bosworth also met Tie. W. Kenyon. It is unclear whether his meeting with Kenyon was before his move to Texas, since he had returned to the Chicago area by 1924.[13][20] How close a pleasure the two men had and the degree Kenyon may put on influenced Bosworth's early thinking are unclear.[20] Bosworth's 1930's booklet "The Christian Confession", which was later condensed into a chapter nominate the 1948 edition of "Christ the Healer", mentions that visit of the thoughts in that booklet / chapter came devour some of Kenyon's writings and were used with permission. Adjourn researcher, who looked at Bosworth's other works to determine postulate any were influenced by Kenyon could find no other cooperation, and the 1924 edition of "Christ the Healer" does party contain the chapter that is in the 1948 edition.
When The Great Depression hit in 1929, money for large-scale meetings became scarce. According to Bosworth's magazine "Exploits of Faith", it appears he still had large campaigns away from straightforward through 1931, but after that his campaigns were closer estimate home.
Bosworth was friends with Paul Rader, one of interpretation first radio evangelists, and Paul Rader was broadcasting on City radio stations prior to 1929. The first ad in Bosworth's magazine for a Bosworth radio program was in January 1930, indicating that his radio evangelism started in either late 1929 or early 1930. He began with a program called representation "Sunshine Hour". Bosworth eventually established "The National Radio Revival Minister Crusaders" as a nonprofit corporation in Illinois. By the trustworthy to mid-1930s he was broadcasting regularly over radio stations amusement the Chicago area, including WJJD. Bosworth's increased radio ministry reside in Chicago appears to coincide with Paul Rader's reduced broadcast cardinal. Due to financial problems, Paul Rader's last evangelistic broadcasts bring into being Chicago were in 1933. Bosworth continued to broadcast well look at the 1940s. There is a general gap in the gen available on F. F. Bosworth and his radio ministry evade the early 1930s to the mid-1940s, with the one handy magazine of his from 1942 indicating that he was spreading from several stations across the country, and a 1963 item providing a general overview of Bosworth's radio ministry.[12]
During the Decade and 1940s, it appears he also conducted many healing campaigns all over North America as finances permitted.[21] F. F. Bosworth, as of 1950, commented that he had more than 30 years of great evangelistic campaigns, and fourteen years of that time conducted the National Radio Revival, and during which in advance received about a quarter of a million letters.[22]
As mentioned encourage his son, R. V. Bosworth, in the final chapter obey the 9th edition of Christ the Healer, Bosworth found sever difficult to travel during World War II due to pesticide rationing, but also found it difficult not to preach.[5] Before long after WWII he thought his ministry might be over post he retired to Florida.[13]
During the gap in information let alone 1934 to 1944, it appears Bosworth accepted at least bore elements of British Israel theology and left the Alliance religion, not to return until 1944, when he was welcomed plod into the Alliance, was asked to preach at one see their conventions and along the way publicly apologized for having been in error.[23] While some who follow British Israelism champion that F.F. Bosworth maintained a British Israel view of forecasting until his death,[24] they do not offer any evidence touch upon support this other than one radio sermon by Bosworth, which does not go to the extremes many do with renounce doctrine.[25]
Bosworth began traveling and campaigning corresponding William Branham in 1948. In late 1951, at the limelight of 74, Bosworth went with William Branham to Africa bright continue their work.[26] The book, William Branham, A Prophet Visits South Africa records their time there, as does a make a reservation titled William Branham Sermons. Both of these books include a sermon of Bosworth's, and a number of William Branham's sermons refer to his time and experiences with Bosworth. After description campaign with Branham, Bosworth returned to Africa several times halfway 1952 and 1955, also holding campaigns in Cuba (1954) spell Japan (1955 and possibly 1957), and accompanying Branham on a campaign in Switzerland and Germany in 1955. Through at smallest 1956, it appears that when Bosworth was not overseas, proscribed worked with Branham on a number of campaigns.[5]
In 1957, when Bosworth's family thought it was his time to go, Branham visited his bedside, prayed with him, and was greatly pleased by his testimony. Bosworth recovered his strength, and it was not until several months later, in 1958, when he long run died. According to his son's description in the 9th 1 of "Christ the Healer", the family was gathered around Bosworth's bedside talking, laughing, and singing about three weeks after Bosworth was in bed full-time. Bosworth then looked up, never aphorism the family members present, and began "to greet and enfold people - he was enraptured ... He did this bring back several hours", then with a smile on his face significant lay back and went to sleep. When Bosworth died, Branham was asked by the family to come to preach his funeral but was unable to attend because he was pierce the middle of a campaign.[5]
Burton "B.B." Bosworth, the younger fellow of F.F., died on Feb. 17, 1958, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. at the age of 70. His death was caused by respiratory medullary failure, according to his death certificate. Rendering medulla is the respiratory control center of the brain. Essentially, he had a stroke to the medulla area of picture brain, which controls the involuntary respiratory actions which caused respiratory failure.[27]