5: History of the IFB Part 2 - J. Frank Norris Part 2

This is the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring to light the legalism and abuse in the independent fundamental Baptist movement and to encourage believers to grow in grace through the scriptures. Now here's your host, John Holyfield. Welcome everybody to the For Freedom Podcast. I am your host, John Holyfield. It's good to have you back with me today. And we are going through the history of the IFB, so we're going to get back into that today in today's episode. If you follow the Facebook page, this past week you saw me put out a video based on sort of some reactions of just some things that I've been feeling inside after watching a couple of things. And so if you haven't seen that, you can go on our Facebook page, For Freedom Ministries on Facebook and watch that video. But basically, listen, it's time for the church to change its culture. We have got to reach out to victims. We've got to stop covering up sin. We've got to stop covering up abuse. And we've got to get to a point where victims are comfortable in the church coming forward. I mean, for crying out loud, what is... I mean, if the church can't be the haven of hope or the place where those that are victims can come to, who can? I mean, that is in a sense sort of my frustration and my passion, my burden with this. With that being said, a couple of recommendations for you. I mentioned this in the video. You know what? You should check out the documentary on Netflix. If you have Netflix, check out the documentary on Netflix, Athlete A. Athlete A. It is a fantastic... Now, I watched a year or two ago, I watched a documentary on HBO called At the Heart of Gold, and it sort of does... It tells sort of the same story of the U.S. gymnastics team in the sexual abuse case that went on there with Larry Nassar. But I think this one does a... It has some very good testimonies in it. This one... The one on HBO really does a detailed job of going into Larry Nassar. This one does a better job of going into the culture of U.S. gymnastics that allowed that kind of abuse to continue to happen. And it talks about, you know, just the other abuse that went on. And so it really does a better job, I think, of really hearing the victims' voices and those of the girls that were involved in gymnastics, with U.S. gymnastics. Also, check out Jeffrey Epstein's documentary, Jeffrey Epstein, Filthy Rich. That is flooring. That will put you in the floor. That is... Wow, the testimonies of some of these women and what was going on. And it's... The cover-up and the allowance of that stuff to continue to go on. I highly recommend it. Right now, my wife and I are working our way through the Unsolved Mysteries. Oh, I love the Unsolved Mysteries. I don't know if you watched that back in the day when it came on, but they brought this back and it's a whole lot better. Whoever is behind the documentary team is doing a great job with it. But my wife said it frustrates her because she wants to know what happened. And so I think in some of these, you sort of have an idea. Even though the case is unsolved, you have an idea of what's going on. And also, I want to give a... I shared this on Facebook, but if you are listening to this, I wouldn't imagine that most of the people that listen to this podcast listen to the Preacher Boys podcast with Eric Swarzynski first. But if for some reason you don't listen to Preacher Boys podcast and you're listening to this podcast, check out the episode that just dropped. I don't know the number of the episode right offhand, but the title of it is Dr. Jekyll, Pastor Hyde. It is lengthy. For a podcast, it's two hours. But man, I'm telling you, it's worth it. There was so much good. That is one of the most amazing stories that he's covered on that podcast. So just make some time. If it takes you a week to get through that episode, check that episode out. But that's it for recommendations this week. We are going to get back into this. We left off last time. We're covering the history. So I'm going to do several episodes. We're going to do sort of a series of episodes on the history of the independent fundamental Baptist movement to sort of get an idea of where a lot of these things and these issues come from. So we're doing a series of episodes on the history of this. We started that last week, and the part one of it was J. Frank Norris. So we got into the beginning of J. Frank Norris' life and really didn't finish J. Frank Norris' life. So we're going to get back into this. Started off with sort of the culture, the fundamentalism, the rise of fundamentalism, sort of answering the influx of modernism into American Christianity and what was going on there. And then one of those fundamentalists in the South that arose during this time was a pastor of First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas and the editor of a Baptist bulletin newspaper type of deal called The Searchlight. His name was J. Frank Norris. Now, many in the IFB, and I say that not all, maybe not all of them, I don't want to just go ahead and say everybody in the IFB does, but I've not met one who doesn't view J. Frank Norris as the father of the independent fundamental Baptist movement. In fact, just to replay the whole clip, but this is what Jack Treber said of J. Frank Norris that he was, listen to this. J. Frank Norris, pastor, America's pastor at that time. What a mighty, mighty man of God. Okay, so there you go. Jack Treber who pastors North Valley Baptist Church in California and is over the Golden State Baptist College, a ministry that many IFB churches send their young people to, and then those young people graduate and come out of that college and sort of spread the IFB movement as well. So they think he's a mighty man of God. He is looked to as this great man of God that had a massive ministry that God greatly used to get out of the Southern Baptist movement. So as I said last week, J. Frank Norris? J. Frank Norris was a, oh my goodness, he was a colorful character. And I said last time, and I still say this, I'll say it again, if you put Donald Trump as a Baptist preacher, I think you get J. Frank Norris. Oh my goodness. And so we covered last time that this guy rose to prominence, prominence, I mean massive church for that time. I mean he was running 5,000, largest church maybe in the country, huge following, became very controversial in the area, ran into some trouble with the law, his building burnt down. The Southern Baptist Convention kicks him out because of just him tearing them apart and not getting along and accusing them of things. And then he kills Dexter Chips, D.E. Chips, in his office at the church, goes on murder trial for that, is found not guilty. His reputation takes a hit just a little bit for that, but soon after that he becomes a pastor of a second church in Detroit, Michigan. So this guy's pastoring a church in Fort Worth, Texas, and pastoring a church in Detroit, Michigan in the 20s and 30s. Okay, so I mean traveling is not even as advanced as it is now back then, and so he was doing that. And that church in Detroit grows to crazy numbers and becomes one of the largest churches in the country as well. And then we talked a little bit about the racism. He was very avid. He was a supporter of the KKK. He routinely or regularly let the KKK use his building, his facilities. I did not tell this story. There's one anecdote in one of the books that I read about Norris. I don't remember offhand which one, but he would go up to the balcony or sort of to the roof, the ceiling, and there was a door, sort of a door that he could open up and look down. So he's sort of in the attic of the church building, and so the African Americans that were cleaning the church auditorium, he would sort of make noises or something and just scare them and just laugh and was noted to say that he would love to do that to find his time and crack up at, you know, and I'm not going to say the word, but he called them the N-word. Another interesting thing about his racism was whenever he had killed Dexter Chips in his office, one of the witnesses that was there was the janitor of the church who was a black man. And the janitor of the church had been saved at the church but never baptized because Norris would not baptize a black person, would not do it. And so after that, him and his lawyer got the janitor aside and said, you're going to be a witness for us. And the janitor said that he would testify in court for them. And so he was definitely on Norris' side. So Norris makes it a big deal that they are going to baptize the first African American in Fort Worth, and First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, and it was going to be this janitor who had been saved years before. The interesting thing is it never happened. He never got around to actually baptizing this poor janitor. And that was just sort of a touch of Norris' racism. J. Frank Norris, though, let's continue on. This is going to be the next part of J. Frank Norris' life in ministry. J. Frank Norris, for all accounts and purposes, independent fundamental Baptists, like to say he's their first independent guy, breaking his church away. But the interesting thing about Norris' life, if you track him, he's always trying to start an organization, an association, or some type of thing like that. Link up with a group, something. But he, in a sense, always ruins that relationship. And really, they have such ugly breakups, because it's just the guy that he was. The book that I'm going to mention today, and I'll put the link to the show notes, is called One and Hope in Doctrine. Shout out to Matthew Lyon for the recommendation of this book and the research of this material. It is The Origins of Baptist Fundamentalism, from 1870 to 1950, by Kevin Bowder and Robert Delnay. Now, the majority of the book is about the Northern Baptists and the beginning of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches. But the end of the book has a couple of chapters about Norris and John R. Rice that are fantastic. So, Bowder and Delnay say this, much of Norris' ministry was characterized by conflict as he picked one fight after another. Some of you listening to this will probably say, yep, that sounds like an independent fundamental Baptist. So, let's first of all look at his fight with, we've already characterized his split with the Southern Baptist Convention. So, let's look at his link up and demise with the General Association of Regular Baptists, or the GARBC. Early in 1925, the Baptist Bible Union was an organization that he helped get started. It was him, T.T. Shields, W.B. Riley. T.T. Shields was in Canada, but W.B. Riley was in Minnesota. So, they were in the North, and Norris being in the South. And so, they got together and started the Baptist Bible Union. And these guys would have this regional conference, sort of like a stance of fundamentalism in the face of the Northern Baptist Convention. But it began, it started with his murder trial, Norris' murder trial, and then other things started causing the Baptist Bible Union to sort of fall, deteriorate. It wasn't as strong as it was. Then, one of their prominent speakers at their conferences and members, A.C. Dixon, shocked them by publicly resigning both his seat on the Executive Committee and his entire membership. The Baptist Bible Union collapsed, and Norris, along with a guy named C.P. Steeley, formed the Premillennial Baptist Missionary Fellowship in Fort Worth. A few years later, that body was chartered under a slightly different name, and then, finally, it is known, as we look at it today, and it was changed in 1950 to the World Baptist Fellowship. Okay? So, what was going on in the North was you had a much more civil reaction to the modernist shift in the North and the Baptist Convention. And so, these guys were trying their hardest to get a conservative resurgence, to use that term as what happened in the SBC in the 80s, but they were trying to do this in the North in the 20s and 30s. Okay? It really never worked. It really never worked. In the process of all this, it gave rise to the General Association of Regular Baptists, and they ended up voting into their leadership a guy by the name of Robert Ketchum. Now, Norris' break with the GARBC, now, once he becomes pastor in Detroit, he quickly jumps into league with the GARBC and is all about them. They're a little bit hesitant with him, and you probably understand why. So, he jumps in with, and a lot of his conflict becomes between Norris and Ketchum. I'll read this from Bowder and Delnais' book. It could be speculated, and is believed by many historians, that J. Frank Norris carried a chip on his shoulder that he was not looked to for this position, or that Ketchum did not seek his influence more. But, Ketchum desired to lead a movement that was based more on churches and less on personalities. And it's interesting, because if you think about the Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement, it tends to become a movement of personalities. I mean, that is really where it grows and where it expands. We're going to get to this as we get past the J. Frank Norris, but you see this in John R. Rice, and John R. Rice platforming personalities. Jack Hiles, Bob Gray of Jacksonville, Florida, Tom Malone, Curtis Hudson eventually. And so these big personalities are what attracts people to the conferences, because they are dynamic speakers, and they're charismatic leaders, and so therefore they grow big churches. And so for that reason, Rice brings them in, and so it becomes a movement based on personalities. And not really, completely on the Word of God. Okay? So that was what Ketchum was wanting. Ketchum believed, I think Ketchum believed that one of the problems with the reason why the Northern Baptist Convention, the conservatives were never able to take it back, was because all of their formations before, like the Bible Baptist Union and that kind of thing, was based on personalities, and it just didn't work. In 1938, the relationship between Norris and the Northern Baptist and GARBC leader Robert Ketchum begins to sour. Norris starts to attack Ketchum, trying to discredit him for some presumed slight that Norris felt that he was given by Robert Ketchum. Now check this out. Norris writes, and a lot of this is great research done by Balder and Delnay in this book. They actually provide actual letters that they have found in their research. So a lot of these are the actual words that these guys were writing to each other. So Norris writes to Ketchum. Listen to this. No wonder you are mad, and mad at yourself more than anybody for being caught on your petard. You were fired at Waterloo when the GARBC adopted the Council of 14, and they let you down easy by discontinuing the office. They did like I saw a crowd do to a smart aleck at a country dance when I was a boy. They slipped a chair out from under him, and his caboose hit the floor. You are mad, and you're gonna be madder. In your asinine conceit, and most big-bellied men are conceited, you thought I needed a favor from you. Why would a man need a favor from a man whose work is on four flats? My crowds are greater than ever before, baptizing more people today than I ever did in my life. You fellows remind me of a little flea-bitten lice dog jumping up in a wheat field to see which way the rabbit went. You are mad, and you're gonna get madder, and you just as well understand you will have to stand up and take it. You have ruined the G-A-R-B-C, and you think that you are a great preacher, and there are a thousand others just as good. Many of them are better. You run your hands down in your pockets and strut up and down the stage, and folks laugh at you. The only time you had a crowd was at Harvey Morrison's when our crowd went there, and most of them went to sleep while you were scraping the stardust, and nobody understood it. And you yourself did not know anything about it. When I was up at Shields not long ago, he was laughing at your conceit. When a man is conceited, he should have something to be conceited about. I am writing you with the hope that I can make you mad enough to send out some more letters. Everybody knows that your jealousy is measured by your large waistband, and that they are all laughing about it. May the God of all grace pity you. P.S. If you knew some of the wonderful things that have come into my work of the men who are backing me, you would just bust your belly band with the worst case of envy, even worse than the envy that caused Saul to go to the witch of Endor. Now, let me ask you a question. Does that sound like a preacher? You may be thinking, yeah, that sounds a lot like the IFP preachers I know. No, no, no, no. Does that sound like an elder that is given to us in the word of God of how an elder is supposed to behave? Let me see if I can pull it up real quick. Hold on just a second. See, the Bible gives qualifications for how a preacher, and I don't say the term man of God, I repudiate that term. Listen, the only place that you find man of God in the scriptures is in the Old Testament, speaking of prophets. And when you get to the New Testament, you don't have prophets anymore. You have undershepherds, pastors, elders, bishops, all different names to describe the same office, not a holier-than-thou man of God type of title. Now, here is what Paul, the apostle, says that an elder or a pastor, which is what J. Frank Norris considered him and what people considered him to be, is supposed to be like. Verse 2 of 1 Timothy chapter 3, Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, self-controlled, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace into a snare of the devil. Guys, this is not, J. Frank Norris is missing on so many levels, and so what does that tell us? That tells us that this guy, I'm not even to the end yet, I'm already hitting my point, this tells us that this guy that they hold up as the father of their movement was disqualified to even being a pastorate. So you're running your movement started by some guy that you think that this is who he's supposed to be is disqualified. Alright. So, back to J. Frank Norris. During 1943 and 1944, Norris began to send long telegrams that were delivered just as Ketchum was about to enter the pulpit so he could read them before he tried to preach to his people. And, Bowder and Dene put these, a few examples of these, they're horrendous. So, that basically, there's some more stuff that goes on. There's so much that happens between Norris and these guys. And let me read this, finally, the GARBC, sorry, the GARBC meet several times to discuss the attacks that Norris was giving. And, in March 21 through the 24th of 1939, they met to discuss these. And, this is what they came to and this is recorded in their minutes. The slanderous and libelous attacks of Mr. J. Frank Norris upon the GARB and men associated were thoroughly gone into, and while it is agreed there was sufficient, unimpeachable evidence in our files which, if published, would brand Mr. Norris forever and evermore as a man utterly devoid of Christian ethics, common courtesy, and trustworthiness, it was decided to follow the policy of silence as far as any published answer to his attacks is concerned and commit Mr. Norris to the judgment of him who judgeth righteously, who hath said, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. So, they basically cut ways with J. Frank Norris and said they're going to hand him over to God and basically that if they published what they had on J. Frank Norris it would have been awful. Now, let me move into the next phase of this guy. He had going the World Fundamental Baptist Missionary Fellowship, okay? So, this is the big thing that he sort of started. Original guys were mainly Norris. Norris' right-hand guy in Detroit, G.B. Vic, George Bouchard Vic, and a guy named Ralph Jackson. Now, this is where we get into a very much more sinister part of Norris' life because he does break with both of these guys, but I'm going to discuss right here his break with Jackson. The break with Jackson came when Jackson's wife actually publicly accused Norris of sexual harassment. Now, that's the term that is used in the book. I believe this was much more than sexual harassment. So, just hang on with this and listen to this account. Jackson's wife, Ralph Jackson's wife's name was Dorothy, and in June of 1940, she released a letter that accused Norris of multiple attempts to initiate a sexual relationship with her. there were specific allegations that involved several episodes that began in 1935. And, so we have recorded Jackson alleged that in the last episode Norris attacked her in an empty Sunday school room, empty room in the Sunday school building at First Baptist of Fort Worth, tearing her clothes and attempting to force her into a sexual encounter. She fled and she claimed that she could produce reliable witnesses to the condition of her clothing, just as she could produce a witness to the circumstances of previous incidents. Her closing paragraph stated, quote, I challenge Dr. J. Frank Norris to face me before the board of deacons of the Temple Baptist Church, at which time I can produce the witnesses to the certain accusations set forth above, and at the same time bring before the board other women who have been similarly approached. W.B. Riley. Now, W.B. Riley is a very highly respected fundamentalist guy that was in the North, broke from the Northern Baptist Convention that was in Minnesota. He wrote after this came out, check this out, now he knew Norris, he preached in meetings with Norris, he wrote to her husband, Ralph Jackson, after this note, this letter in June of 1940 was released, and this is what W.B. Riley said about this, quote, the statement signed by your wife at hand, her testimony is in perfect line with what some of us have long known to be accustomed with this gentleman. If I were making a rough guess, I should say that she is only one of possibly a hundred. I base that, however, upon absolute knowledge on some occasions and suggestive appearances in many others, end quote. Now, number one, that is extremely damning on J. Frank Norris' part, and it should wake you up if you hold J. Frank Norris to any type, if nothing we've said so far does, it should wake you up to any type of ideas that J. Frank Norris is some kind of guy that we should look to. However, it does need to be said that the sad fact and the sad truth, the disgusting truth, that during this time, the practice was to cover it up, to stay quiet about it, sweep it under a rug, to not hold this man accountable. And we wonder why that became the culture in IFB churches. And people that despise the term systemic abuse, you start digging into this stuff, and I'm sorry, I believe the facts render themselves to be that within the independent fundamental Baptist church, that claim renders true. There is a systemic problem. I'm going to get to why there's a systemic problem later on. Dorothy Jackson's testimony is also corroborated by similar testimonies from others. Now check this out. One woman who had been a student at Norris' school in Fort Worth offered her recollection. She said this quote, now this is actually a personal interview that the authors had with this lady. She said quote, when we girls would leave our dormitory room in the morning, we would slightly sprinkle powder in front of the door. When we came back, if we saw a man's footprint, we wouldn't go into our rooms. We knew Dr. Norris was inside waiting for us. End quote. That's disgusting. That's disgusting. More corroborating testimony comes from G.B. Vick after Norris and Vick split in 1950, and I'm going to get to that in a minute. Vick wanted to try to basically get Norris to let go of Temple Baptist Church in Detroit. That way George Bouchent Vick could go ahead and take the pastorate over. But he was having trouble with Norris, so they decided to have a meeting and have Norris come in. And Vick gathered considerable documentation of improprieties in which Norris had been involved. Vick later recalled, and I quote, and this is also from an interview of the authors of this book with G.B. Vick himself, and I also had two, had one girl, so I could call her, if necessary, and that kind of jolted him when he saw her sitting out there. And I had an affidavit from another one that he had tried the same thing with, a signed affidavit, end quote. So, this guy was a serial abuser. J. Frank Norris was. And what was it that Jack Treber called him? What a mighty, mighty man of God. Yeah, okay. All right, so one of, as it concerns the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement and its history, it continues to go on with John R. Rice. Now, J. Frank Norris and John R. Rice were actually close confidants, comrades in arms, I guess you can say, for a period of time. But eventually, J. Frank Norris ruined his relationship with John R. Rice. John R. Rice was a young evangelist coming through the Texas area, and J. Frank Norris saw the potential in him. And so J. Frank Norris wanted to use John R. Rice to help boost his ministry, so they became close friends. He helped platform John R. Rice, and the relationship was mutually beneficial, and they grew to be good friends, and Rice's popularity was growing. J. Frank Norris's paper was growing, and he was using it to put Rice's sermons in, and that kind of thing. Rice began to, he took a pastorate, I'm going to get into Rice's life later, but he took a pastorate, and then he began to travel around and hold revival meetings, and that kind of thing. Tensions, however, began to surface when Rice opposed Norris's attacks on Baylor and defended his alma mater against the accusation. See, Rice was from Baylor, and even though John R. Rice had left the Southern Baptist Convention, now he actually left, because of his problems with modernism, he still had many friendships. He did not have the, let me say this, John R. Rice did not have the same mentality that Norris did. John R. Rice may disagree with some of these guys, but he tried his best to still remain friends with them. And so J. Frank Norris begins to attack some of his guys that he knows over at Baylor, and he has some issue with it. In August of 1935, Rice printed an open letter that was critical of some of the men that Norris allowed in his annual Bible school. Rice begins doing his own paper called The Sword of the Lord, and this is not in Tennessee yet, but then he decides to use the same thing that Norris was using against him, and so he says, let me give you some of the issues I have with some of these guys that are speaking at your church. Here's the thing that just bothers me. Instead of these guys getting together, writing a letter to each other, scheduling a meeting, finding some time to get together and talk this out like brothers in Christ, Christ, Christians should do. They become to have these sort of back and forth jabs at each other through their papers. Norris began to print accusations in his paper that Rice endorsed the quote unquote Holy Rollers movement, which is what they called at that time the newly formed charismatic movement, and that was new on the scene as well during this time. He said that Rice believed in speaking in tongues, but the silly thing about this accusation on Norris' part is that Rice emphatically did not, in fact he had already wrote pamphlets about this, later writes an entire book about it called The Charismatics. This, however, caused conflict for one of Rice's meetings in the north. So he had a meeting up there and a pastor saw what Norris wrote about him, became really concerned, called Rice, or sent Rice a telegram saying that he's canceled the meeting. And Rice basically, it was so quick, a way to get a reply, he writes the guy back and says, listen, all of these claims are baseless and I'm coming up there anyways. I've got my trip lined up, money set aside, my family is packed, we're coming out there, we're holding the meeting, and I'll see you when I get out there. If you still don't want to have the meeting, that's fine, I'll return, but I'm coming. And we can talk about this if you want. So, he gets out there, the guy basically just has a conversation with him and realizes that Rice was on the right side of this, and so they went ahead and had the revival meeting. But, with that, the damage between John R. Rice and J. Frank Norris had been done, and, you know, Matthew Lyon, who you can go online, he's got a Ph.D. in Baptist history from Southern Seminary and done some fantastic work. He's done a couple of dissertations on stuff and wrote some papers on Norris and Rice. Rice. He wrote on this incident. He says it's unclear the exact nature of the final straw, but it had something to do with Norris' treatment of a guy named Sam Morris, who was a well-known Southern Baptist preacher who had been friends with Rice for years. Now, listen to what Norris says that Matthew Lyon records. According to Rice, the letter that Norris wrote and said, this, quote, but, this is J. Frank Norris, but this I'm dead certain of that no man will get anywhere in the cause of fundamentalism in the North, East, or outside of Texas if he fails to have the love and confidence of First Baptist Church, and Sam needs me. I don't need him. Norris says essentially the same thing to John R. Rice, and basically the idea is this, you either do what I say or you tow the line or your ministry will be nothing. I made you. You know, along those lines of that kind of attitude. And John R. Rice said, listen, I don't belong to you. And so therefore, because of Norris' ferocity in attacking John R. Rice and the charges he brought, he brought, basically that ended their relationship. relationship. And so John R. Rice and J. Frank Norris basically cut ties there. Now, next you have the break with G.B. Vic and Temple Baptist Church. So he only pastors the two churches, Fort Worth and Detroit, for 13 years. Because eventually, of course he's having G.B. Vic run things there in Detroit, and eventually that just gets to where it can. things worked well in Detroit when Vic was running things. The people loved Vic. Norris would come in and preach. Complications only arose whenever Norris would plant his feet there in Detroit for a little bit and just stick his nose in things and want to do things and it would cause issues. Well, eventually, Norris has this Bible seminary institute type of thing going on in Fort Worth, which is actually a joke. and it had gotten so bad that he asked Vic to leave Detroit and come down there and run the seminary because it was about to tank, about to go under. Vic really didn't want to, but he respected Norris and he decided to go down there and do that. When he got there, he found the seminary in such bad shape. Misappropriation of funds was one of the biggest issues. In fact, there was one thing that he found out that Norris had to make a trip for the seminary so to make the trip, he goes and purchases a brand new Buick Roadmaster out of seminary funds. Then after the trip is over, he just kept the car for himself. So Vic goes down there and within about a year and a half, he begins to start turning the seminary around. Things start doing better, everything's going well, but one of the problems he has is that the elderly Louis Inzminger, he was having some issues with his stuff because he really didn't have a workload at all. And he was the highest paid staff member. And so Vic's down there trying to see how he can make things work, so he's talking about maybe dropping his salary. And of course, this is interpreted to Inzminger as an attack. It gets back to Norris that basically Vic wants to fire Inzminger, which is not the case. And so what Norris does is he then turns around and he fires Vic through a letter. So Vic finds out through a letter that Norris has done with him and he fires G.B. Vic. So G.B. Vic goes back to Detroit and here becomes the blow up between G.B. Vic, J. Frank Norris, the World Baptist Missionary Fellowship, and the Temple Baptist Church. All of these things sort of blow up in one. And it's hard. There is so much back and forth of just J. Frank Norris embarrassing himself. In fact, in one instance, he, let's see, one instance, they basically, they're having this meeting, okay? And so Norris decides to have, there's accusations going back and forth. Finally, Vic's had enough. he starts telling people what he knows, so this then, truth about Norris' character begins to come out. And so Norris decides to have this sort of meeting, which he announces in his paper, and just sort of advertises that this is going to be like a court hearing to exonerate J. Frank Norris. So everybody comes to the meeting, it's like 9 o'clock in the morning in the church auditorium, and he has all this stuff planned. What he did not count on was when he put it out in the searchlight, Vic and two other guys that were also on the board of the World Missionary Baptist Fellowship, or World Baptist Missionary Fellowship, whatever, decided to fly down there, or drove down there, and they came down there, and they basically showed up, and they had a group of people with them as well, because at one point it came down to either you're with Norris or you're with Vic, because Vic had a foothold in the seminary, and so students that said that they were favorable to Vic, he just expelled them. So there was a lot of disgruntled students that then stayed in the area, and they came in with Vic, and you sort of had, it was a mess. Finally, they had some mediators come in, and basically Norris relinquished in 1950, Norris relinquished the Temple Baptist Church, so G.B. Vic took that over. He relinquished the World Missionary Baptist Fellowship, and so that was taken over by Vic, and then he sort of started his own little thing, but he only had a few more years. He would die two years later. And so one more thing here. Eventually, Norris even also fell out with his own son. His son George, in 1944, he selected George as his successor at First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas. And this is how they did it. He simply told the church that he was making his son the head pastor. He made it clear to George, however, that he was to do exactly as his father told him. But, as you can probably guess, that lasted about a year before George was basically done with not being able to be his own person. Leading many members out of First Baptist Church, he went across town and started the Gideon Baptist Church. And, Bowder and Dene talk about this in their book, and they write this, In one of his most poisonous moments, Norris told his son that he would happily pay the fees to have George's last name legally changed. He was a sad, sad man. In his final years, Norris expressed regrets about having used sensationalism in his ministry to such a degree. That was about it. He abandoned his rabid anti-Catholicism. He even had audiences with the Pope in the late 40s. He died in August of 1952 at the age of 74 while speaking at a Florida youth camp. At the time of his death, Norris had seven judgments standing against him in a Tarrant County for slander and libel. Wrapping up J. Frank Norris, listen to this. Years later, in her letter of accusation against Norris, Dorothy Jackson had told how Norris responded when she confronted him personally with her charges. Dr. Norris' reply to my charges at the time was, if any man dared to make any recollection of my wife's husband, I would resign from the ministry for 15 minutes, call him a son of a cuss word, which he pronounced in full, and beat the H-E-L-L out of him, and then go down and pay my fine. End quote. W.B. Riley, in response to that letter, said this, quote, and the half of his infamy will never be told. This is my conviction after years of observation and audience. End quote. And, ladies and gentlemen, that is J. Frank Norris. This is the father of the independent fundamental Baptist movement. Did he have the large churches and the success in ministry like Jack Hiles? Yes, he did. Jack Hiles, of course, exceeded that large ministry. In fact, I've heard or read somewhere where Jack Hiles tried to pattern his ministry after J. Frank Norris. In more ways than one, I'd say. Did he go after and attack people like Peter Ruckman? I think so. And that's where I get the point of saying if you roll Jack Hiles and Peter Ruckman into one person, you get J. Frank Norris. this is what, I mean, they think he is some kind of mighty man of God. What a mighty, mighty man of God. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so. Listen, I know as we approach history, when we deal with history and church history, we have to understand that whenever we look at history, we are treating it with a little bit of, how do you say, forgiveness, forgiveness, because people were, they were a product of their time. And so sometimes we can forgive certain issues that we look back and say, that's, how could they be that way? By understanding they were a product of their time, and maybe even the location that they were in of that time in history. history. I don't think, and I, listen, it is my conviction, I do not believe to the extent of J. Frank Norris' life that you can continue to use that argument to forgive everything that he did. This man, listen, I don't get into judging hearts, I don't want to, you know, say this or that about whether someone was converted, but the Bible says by your fruits you will know them. It's hard for me to look at the life of J. Frank Norris and say that this guy was a converted man. And this is who the many in the IFB and the leadership of the IFB look to as the father of the movement. Now, where does tracing the independent fundamental Baptist movement today backwards? The line of succession goes from J. Frank Norris to John R. Rice. Now, it was not known as the independent fundamental Baptist movement during the time of J. Frank Norris, even during the early years of John R. Rice. Once we get to John R. Rice, we see that the formation, the really, the bones of it was sort of there with Norris. it starts to get fleshed out after John R. Rice's ministry. Okay? So, next time, we're going to continue through this study of the history of the independent fundamental Baptist movement. And so, next week, we will dive into John R. Rice. John R. Rice and the sword of the Lord movement. And so, then that will give us way into many of what people know of today as the IFB, the Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement. Thank you for listening today. And I appreciate all of the likes on the Facebook page. If you like the podcast, give it a rating or a review. Share it on social media. You can find 4 Freedom Ministries on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. And until next time, to God, not the pastor, be the glory. Be the glory.komkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkomkom Thank you.

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