This is the second installment in a special three-part blog series on the project to digitize and present online the final sermons of George W. Truett (1867-1944), noted pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas and namesake of Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. Read the previous installment here. 

The human voice is a powerful medium, surpassing the printed word in its ability to bestir, to convince, to cajole and – in the case of a pastor’s words to his congregation – to save. In a preliterate society the power of speech was the sole means of conveying an idea, rousing a people or sending along the latest gossip. And even after humans gained the skills to write down our thoughts via print and share them with others who spoke the same language, we find ourselves captivated, spellbound by someone with an ability to spin ideas from spoken syllables, to offer hope by the combination of his mind, his tongue and his vocal chords.

Perhaps that’s why there is such power in the recorded sermons of George W. Truett. It’s true that you can get the gist of his message by reading a transcript, either from our digital collection or in one of the many publications that cited his words. But nothing can replace the impact, the instinctive reaction that comes with listening to them, as clear as the day they were recorded over 70 years ago. Truett’s voice may occasionally waver, his cadence and phraseology may sound distinctly Southern and turn-of-the-19^th-century, but when he infuses even a simple phrase or concept with the force of his well-honed speaking voice, it assumes an authority that can only come from a speaker who is supremely confident in what he has to say.

Building a Successful Sermon

Now that we’ve loaded approximately one-third of the sermons in the G.W. Truett Sermons Collection, a pattern has begun to emerge in the items I’ve encountered to date. While the content of each sermon is unique – covering everything from the Lord’s Prayer to Old Testament prophets and the application of contemporary world events with those experienced by the ancient Hebrews – the pattern of Truett’s delivery follows a noticeable pattern.

• Opening/Announcement
• Scripture reading
• Main point one
• Side point
• Anecdote
• Main point two
• Anecdote
• Main point three
• Altar call
• Dismissal/Hymn sing-out (occasionally)

It is tempting to label this approach as formulaic, but one must recall that Truett had been preaching for the better part of four decades by the time of these sermons’ delivery in 1941, so to a certain extent they must have come almost by second nature. In fact, while googling a number of passages delivered by Truett in this sermons, I came across several nearly word-for-word matches cited in books published in the early twentieth century. Why? Because they contained transcripts of sermons Truett had delivered as far back as 1917, the content of which was delivered almost verbatim in the 1940s. That makes his 1941 versions seem more like fond reminiscences of a life spent delivering God’s Word and less like rote repetition of a memorized formula.

Recurring Themes, Surprising Candor

In today’s megachurch society, with its emphasis on the “gospel of prosperity” and the myriad interpretations of what it means to be a Christian, listening to G.W. Truett’s firebrand Baptist delivery can be an eye-opening experience. He makes no bones about the foundation for his entire ministry:

Let me begin my message today by saying, quite personally, that for 40-odd years it has been my sacred privilege to preach from this pulpit. And through all these long years, I have had one theme, and that theme has been Christ. No other theme in all the world would challenge the attendance and the attention of men and women and young people for long, long years, except this theme: Christ. [1]

Listen to audio of this passage

His major recurring theme, regardless the superficial theme of a particular sermon, is always the importance and urgency of bringing souls to Christ. Truett’s preaching carries a sense of impending doom for the unsaved, as one would expect from a favorite uncle or trusted neighbor who has your best interests at heart but has been unable to win you to his cause just yet. It is easy to see a major force behind his constant urging: the ongoing war in Europe, which would come to be called World War II and into which Truett would watch his country plunge in early December, 1941.

As our contemporary culture has moved further and further into a “you believe what you believe, I’ll believe what I believe and we’ll both be equally right” mindset, Truett’s candor regarding the way to salvation can strike modern listeners as shockingly exclusionary, even cliquish.

Salvation is not by a church, no matter what church. Greatly important as is the church as an institution, salvation is not by a church. All the churches in Christendom put together could not, in a million years, give the new birth to some soul wrong with God. Salvation is not by a church, nor by an ordinance, nor by a so-called sacrament, nor by some ritual – however imposing and impressive it may be – nor by some ceremony, nor by a creed, nor by a confession. Salvation, spiritual salvation for humanity, is by a person, and that person is Christ. Mark how he calls to us: “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. I am the way, the truth and the life; I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved. He that climbeth some of the way is a thief and a robber.” [2]

Listen to audio of this passage

Chances are you have heard the last half of this appeal (“I am the way, the truth and the life …”) but it is Truett’s dismissal of any other supposed road to salvation that may be hard for contemporary Christians to swallow.

The language Truett uses to describe life in the early 1940s may also surprise first-time users of the sermons. Americans today are hyper-aware of the words they use to describe people, concepts and events. For someone who has been raised to speak as neutrally and with as little opportunity to offend as possible, it may come as a shock to hear Dr. Truett refer to a boy with physical handicaps as “crippled.” Likewise, hearing him refer to someone as “dumb” or non-Christians as “heathens” may make contemporary listeners uncomfortable.

As with all of the materials in our collections, we urge our users to place these materials in their proper historical context. Truett was a man born just two years after the end of the American Civil War, educated and raised during the “Gilded Age” and matured during the rapid societal changes of the early 1900s. His language reflects his roots, his upbringing and his culture in the same way that today’s Americans are molded by the complex milieu of our societal surroundings. Users should be mindful that Truett’s language and style of delivery – including charming ways of pronouncing words like “parliament” (“pah-lee-ahh-ment”) and “Joshua” (“jaw-shoo-way”) – are reflective of the time and place when they were delivered.

Other notable features of Truett’s style include a fondness for alliteration, as evidenced in this passage from his sermon of June 22, 1941:

And what wonders can be done, sometimes with just one sentence. Many a life has been checked, challenged, changed by one sentence. You may have spoken it – you probably have.

Listen to audio of this passage

Also making an appearance in this sentence is another of Truett’s rhetorical devices, namely, the use of three descriptors or examples to drive home a point. Truett seems to value the well-established efficacy of the concept of the “magic in threes” principle. Human brains are wired to respond more positively and effectively to a series of things that is odd in number, and three seems to be the most effective of all. An example of this, from the same sermon:

Here’s a talent we can use day or night, anywhere in the world we go, at any time: the talent of prayer. [3]

Listen to audio of this passage

***

This is just a cursory look at the style and substance of Truett’s sermons, of course, and we welcome your in-depth examinations, comments and cross-postings as you get deeper into the collection. If you find a favorite passage or an insight you think is too good not to share, we’d love to see your tweets, Facebook posts or blog links. Send us a message at digitalcollectionsinfo@baylor.edu or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/baylordigitalcollections to continue the conversation!

 

Works Cited

[1] From the sermon “Philip at Samaria.” Delivered March 16, 1941. http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/ref/collection/fa-gwt/id/199

[2] From the sermon “What Think Ye of God?” Delivered April 8, 1941.
http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/ref/collection/fa-gwt/id/221

[3] From the sermon “The Gifts of God.” Delivered June 22, 1941.
http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/ref/collection/fa-gwt/id/289

This is the first installment in a special three-part blog series on the project to digitize and present online the final sermons of George W. Truett (1867-1944), noted pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas and namesake of Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary.

One of the most interesting examples of God’s ability to use anyone – or anything – to serve Him is recounted in the twenty-second chapter of the book of Numbers. It is the story of Balaam’s donkey, and if you haven’t read it, do so now, for it demonstrates God’s ability to speak through even the dumbest of beasts when it will be the most effective means of getting the message across.

Balaam’s donkey is a particularly apt comparison to the strange story of how a “border blaster” radio station founded by a convicted medical charlatan would be used to broadcast the final sermons of a powerful Baptist minister to the citizens of three North American countries.

The Strange Case of John Romulus Brinkley

Our story begins with a man named John Brinkley. His was a fascinating life filled with accusations of bigamy, failed attempts to acquire a legitimate medical license, multiple (unsuccessful) campaigns to gain public office, a rise to wealth, a stint as a pioneer in radio broadcasting, and an ignominious, penniless death.

Brinkley’s life is spelled out in agonizing detail in his well-researched Wikipedia entry, so we won’t get too in-depth with this post. Suffice to say, Brinkley was a man with a showman’s instincts and a scalawag’s morals, willing to lie, cheat and defraud to achieve his goals. But like many larger-than-life figures, he also showed bursts of genuine goodness, such as the time he used profits from his successful radio show to purchase a municipal sewer system and other much-needed amenities for the small town of Milford, Kansas.

After telling a male patient he would have no problems with infertility if he had a pair of “goat glands” in him, Brinkley hit on the idea of transplanting the reproductive glands of goats into patients – male and female – who were suffering from various ailments, primarily sexual dysfunction or infertility but also spinal tumors, dementia and even flatulence. Brinkley touted his “cure” with the claim that it would turn previously infertile men into the “ram that am with every lamb,” despite the fact that most patients merely absorbed the glands into their bodies with little or no evidence of an improvement in their underlying condition.

Not surprisingly, his actions drew the attention of the American Medical Association and the crusading physician who would eventually be his downfall. Morris Fishbein would publish a two-part series entitled “ Modern Medical Charlatans,” wherein he exposed Brinkley as a dangerous fraud. Brinkley sued Fishbein for libel, and Fishbein won the case after a jury found that Brinkley “should be considered a charlatan and a quack in the ordinary, well-understood meaning of those words.”

In addition to losing the libel case, Brinkley also faced investigations from the IRS and the U.S. Post Office late in his life. These challenges, combined with a loss of income and deteriorating health, culminated in his death in 1942, a penniless shadow of the man who once ran for governor of Kansas with the promise of providing lower taxes, old-age pensions and a lake in every county. (He managed to gain nearly 30% of the popular vote.)

A Radio Pioneer, But Old Habits Die Hard

As his goat gland “cure” began to turn significant profits in the early 1920s, Brinkley became interested in the power of the radio as a marketing medium and started a station in Kansas under the call letters KFKB. He used this new-found reach to promote his treatments, which he espoused for hours. He interspersing his sales pitches with a diverse range of programming that included, “military bands, French lessons, astrological forecasts, storytelling and exotica such as native Hawaiian songs.”

His success in radio boosted profits through the roof, but his roots as an old-school snake oil seller ran deep. Brinkley began a segment he called the “Medical Question Box,” where listeners wrote in with their various medical concerns which he addressed over the air. Inevitably, the perfect cure for whatever ailed listeners was a patent medicine available only at a pharmacy that participated in his “Brinkley Pharmaceutical Association.” It was estimated that Brinkley made more than $10 million per year (in current value) on the sale of these “medicines.”

Before the Federal Radio Commission shut it down, Brinkley’s station made him a multimillionaire. However, he saw a new opportunity to expand his empire by constructing a 50,000-watt station in Villa Acuña, Mexico, just across the U.S-Mexico border from Del Rio, Texas. Eventually, the Mexican government allowed him to up the wattage of XER to 150,000, making his station audible to citizens of Mexico, the United States and – on nights when the conditions were perfect – as far away as Canada. He resumed his patent medicine-selling ways, taking on new advertisers hocking everything from “genuine simulated” diamonds to autographed pictures of Jesus. During this period Brinkley also purchased Mexican radio station XED; he changed its name to XEAW before selling the station in 1939. XEAW’s new owner would form the link between Brinkley, the power of radio and the Word of God.

A New Owner for XEAW

Carr Collins was another Texas-sized personality when he enters our narrative in the late 1930s. Like Brinkley, Collins had made a sizable fortune selling a “cure” for a common ailment. His approach was to use the radio to sell “Crazy Crystals,” dehydrated minerals from the springs found at Mineral Wells, Texas. When they were re-hydrated and consumed, the crystals were purported to act as a laxative. Collins had also profited from his establishing the Fidelity Union Life Insurance Company, and in his last decades he would use his fortune to support numerous philanthropic causes.

In addition to his prowess as a salesman, Collins was a devout Baptist. He became involved with the leadership of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, where he came into contact with its influential and long-serving pastor, George W. Truett. At some point in the late 1930s or early 1940s, Collins’ station made the decision to broadcast a new kind of program.

Reaching the People of “Radio Land”

By 1941, Truett had entered into the final years of his life. But despite his advanced age and failing health, he continued to deliver weekly sermons and even preside over special week-long programs focusing on prayer, revival and revitalizing the faith of the people of Dallas. At some point in the early 1940s, he entered into an agreement with Collins to broadcast recorded versions of his weekly sermons over the air on XEAW. The sermons were recorded live in the pulpit at First Baptist Dallas on 16” radio transcription discs. These discs were then shipped to the port of entry at Hidalgo, Texas for shipment into Mexico via the city of Reynosa. They would eventually air on XEAW, typically a week later than the dates of their original delivery in Truett’s Dallas pulpit.

Notes written on the existing discs’ labels indicate that an XEAW announcer would read the following script at the end of each broadcast:

“You have been listening to a message by Dr. George W. Truett, Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas. These messages will be presented over XEAW every Sunday evening at 9:30. Tell your friends and neighbors about these.”

Thanks to the joint efforts of two major Dallas citizens – the preacher and the businessman – the people of Mexico, Texas and the entire Southwest could hear the words of one of the biggest names in Southern Baptist history delivered directly to their homes.

The Discs Find New Life in Digital

At least 68 of these broadcast discs were created by the studios of Sellers, Inc. of Dallas. These discs made their way into The Texas Collection at some point after Truett’s death, where they have been preserved along with their original album sleeves. In the fall of 2012, the discs were delivered to the Digital Projects Group to take advantage of our analogue disc migration capabilities and the skills of audio/visual engineer Stephen Bolech.

After organizing the discs into chronological order, Stephen migrates them one side at a time. Because of the original setup used to record them in the 1940s – wherein an audio engineer used two turntables to record the entire sermon over the course of three album sides – Stephen will import three sides of audio and create preservation digital files for each side. Then, he stitches the audio together and enhances it to create the high-quality access versions you will find presented in our Digital Collections.

This approach is a slight departure from our standard operating procedure in that we are presenting “enhanced” audio as opposed to the un-tweaked, “raw” version you would hear in collections like the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project. We chose to present the sermons in a listener-friendly, cleaner format both to aid in comprehension and because of the simpler nature of the audio’s original format – a single voice speaking alone, as opposed to numerous musicians and vocalists layered together.

In addition to the audio files, I am creating transcriptions of the sermons to add to the digital item. This will allow them to be keyword searchable and makes for a helpful aid for researchers interested in diving into the heart of Truett’s message.

All told, this means that each digital item includes a scanned image of all three sides of the discs, the enhanced audio of the sermon and a fully searchable transcript. In short, it is as complete a record as you will find online of any early 20th century preacher’s live, from-the-pulpit sermons.

What’s Next for the Collection?

We are working to complete phase one of the project by the end of the summer. This will mean putting all of Truett’s sermons from 1941 online by the end of August, with the sermons from 1942 and 1943 to follow shortly thereafter. The process for creating these records is a painstaking one, and we are committed to providing the highest quality resources for our users; hence, the staggered release. The first 17 sermons from the project are available now from the Truett Sermons Collection.

(Note: There are an additional 26 albums’ worth of Truett sermons available in this collection as well. These sermons were released by Word Records in the mid-1960s. We plan to create transcripts for these sermons in the future.)

Please take a few moments at your earliest convenience and head over to the collection to take a listen for yourselves. The sound of Truett’s voice, the focus of his message and the immediacy of its content cannot fail to strike a chord, and we encourage your feedback as you discover the items in this collection.

Next week’s blog post will focus on the content of the sermons themselves, from the types of subjects tackled to a brief examination of Truett’s inimitable style. Then, we’ll complete our Truett trifecta with a big announcement about another way you can engage with the collection that will combine 20th century preaching with 21st century technology. Stay tuned!

Sources Consulted:

Gene Fowler and Bill Crawford, “BORDER RADIO,” Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ebb01), accessed July 19, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

“John R. Brinkley.” Wikipedia. Retrieved on July 22, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley

George N. Green, “COLLINS, CARR P.,” Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fco90), accessed July 19, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Joan Jenkins Perez, “TRUETT, GEORGE WASHINGTON,” Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ftr16), accessed July 22, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.