A controversial figure, he engendered love and hate, respect and disrespect, regard and disregard as he wielded the “broad axe, cutting at the roots of the tree of evil, not caring where the chips fell.”
Early Life
John Franklyn Norris was born in Dadeville, Alabama, on September 8, 1877,
to Warner and Mary (Davis) Norris. He was the oldest of three children, brother Dorie and sister Sallie
His mother had a godly influence on him and often told him that one day he would be a great preacher. Her influence helped shape his values and theology.
At age 11, the family moved to a farm near Hubbard, Texas. His father's bouts of drunkenness caused much pain, deprivation and suffering to his family. It also helped breed a strong dislike of liquor in young Norris.
He was converted, at the age of 13, while attending a Methodist revival conducted by J. A. Oswalt. Under the ministry of Catlett Smith, pastor of the Hubbard Baptist Church, he followed Christ in baptism. Shortly thereafter, he surrender to preach the gospel.
Warner Norris Family
L-R: Warner, J. Frank, Dorie, Sallie, Mary
Education
J. Frank Norris enrolled at Baylor University in Waco at the age of 22. During his time at the university, he accepted the call to become pastor of First Baptist Church of Mt. Calm, and was ordained. After a brief courtship, they were married in 1902. He graduated with honors in 1903.
He attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he earned a Master of Theology degree. Delivered the valedictory address at his graduation in May of 1905. When he graduated, he had a wife, a year-old daughter and $800 debts.
Dr. E. Y. Mullins, Dr. J. B. Gambrell, Dr. J. Frank Norris
Family
While attending Baylor University, he met student Lillian Gaddy, daughter of a prominent Southern Baptist pastor. After a brief courtship, they married by Dr. J. B. Gambrell in 1902.
God blessed them with four children: daughter Lillian (1903), sons Jim Gaddy (1906), J. Frank, Jr. (1910), and George (1916).
J. Frank Norris Family
Back Row: Lillian, Jim Gaddy, J. Frank, Jr.
Front Row: Lillian, George, J. Frank , Sr.
1926
Editor
In 1907 he took over the management of The Baptist Standard, a religious newspaper serving Baptists throughout Texas and the South. He later purchased controlling interests and negotiated with other Baptist editors to purchase and merge their newspapers with his. He bought out Dr. S. A. Hayden's Texas Baptist Herald and the Advocate, published by Dr. J. B. Cranfill. He began to us the publication to crusade for an end to gambling in Texas. Circulation grew from 16,000 to 38,000. In 1909 he sold his interests in the Standard when he became pastor of First Baptist Church of Fort Worth.
He began publishing The Fence Rail (1917-18) which later became The Searchlight (1918-26) and in 1927 became The Fundamentalist. He changed the format to include the latest religious news of interest to his readers. Circulation at its highest was 70,000 per issue.
Broadcaster
J. Frank Norris is considered the first broadcast evangelist. He was one of the first preachers to recognize radio as a tool to spread the gospel. In 1925, he established his own radio station in the church. The call letters were KFQB which stood for "Keep Folks Quoting the Bible". Large radio towers were erected on the roof of First Baptist Church right in the heart of downtown Fort Worth.
When he sold the station, the church retained broadcasting privileges for the next 50 years. The church continued broadcasting the Sunday evening service.
By the mid-1930's, a network of 27 radio stations broadcast his weekly message to a coast-to-coast audience. During his time as pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Detroit his messages were broadcast from the 50,000-watt radio station WJR.
Many of his radio sermons railed against liquor, gambling and communism.
Orator
Novelist Sinclair Lewis went out of his way to hear Dr. Norris at First Baptist when on a trip to the southwest in the mid-1920's. He told a reporter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "What did I do this morning? I satisfied a desire of a great many years standing--I went to hear Dr. J. Frank Norris preach. I admire the eloquence and vigor of Dr. Norris and have wanted to hear him. I have never seen before so many people at church at once.
Ministry
First Baptist Church of Mt. Calm, Texas
During his time at Baylor University, he accepted the call to become pastor of First Baptist of Mt. Calm. It was at this time that he was ordained into the gospel ministry. He burned the candle at both ends as a full-time student and pastor of this rural congreation. The attendance at the church was double the town population of 800.
McKinney Avenue Baptist Church
Immediately upon graduation from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he accepted the call to become pastor of the McKinney Avenue Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. Thirteen people attended the first service there. The church quickly grew to over a thousand. He resigned in 1907 to become the editor of The Baptist Standard.
First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas
In 1909 he was invited by First Baptist Church of Fort Worth to fill the pulpit while they searched for a new pastor. In the fall of that year the church extended him a unanimous call and he accepted.
He became involved in numerous social and civic reform activities, including prohibition and gambling reform. By the summer of 1911, the congregation was so large that he bought an old circus tent which had been used bu Sarah Bernhardt on her national tours. It was erected between Throckmorton and Houston on Tenth Street, and he began a 90-day revival, with services each evening. During the revival a city fireman chopped down the tent declaring it a safety hazard. He continued the revival in the open air.
He led the church to establish a ministries to servicemen stationed at Camp Bowie (Tarrant County) during World War I and men stationed at Camp Wolters in Mineral Wells during World War II.
By 1928 membership had increased ten-fold from 1,200 to more than 12,000. He preached to crowds that numbered at times up to 25,000. He used the Sunday evening services for his "provocative" messages, and it was not at all unusual to have twice the crowd size as in the morning. After dealing with the announced subject, Norris would then seque into a pure and powerful gospel message, often with hundreds coming forward.
Under his direction, the church was the first church to own and operate its own religious radio station and to offer its members transportation to and from services.
When Dr. Norris preached, he roamed the platform shouting and weeping, with a Bible in one hand and sometimes a newspaper in the other.
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Temple Baptist of Detroit, Michigan
During the Great Depression, Dr. Norris began to pastor in Detroit (Temple Baptist Church) and in Fort Worth (First Baptist Church) simultaneously in the 1930's-flying back and forth at a time when air travel was in its infancy. Shuffling between two hugh churches in Texas and Michigan, Dr. Norris still found to hold record-breaking rallies, host a nationwide radio show and lead zealous political rallies.
In the late 1940s the combined membership of these ministries totaled more than 25,000.
Crusader
J. Frank Norris was known as "the fighting fundamentalist". He was constantly crusading for the fundamentals of Christianity against moderism. He seemed, in some ways, predestined to take a major role in such battles. His father was a drunkard and his mother was a devout Christian. From the lesson of his father's sad state and the tragedies of family life that attended the alcoholic binges, he developed a passionate hatred for alcohol. From his mother, he inherited a deep love for God.
He spent the first half of his career in Fort Worth trying to tame what remained of the Wild West in the city. During the second half of his 43-year tenure at First Baptist Church, Dr. Norris took his no-compromise fundamentalism to state, national and international arenas.
Immediately after becoming pastor of First Baptist Church, he became involved in local political efforts to clean up prostitution, saloon life and city government. He
became the most vociferous anti-gambling voice in Tarrant County. Through the pages of his paper, he launched an editorial campaign and organized a lobby that was to result in a bill in the Texas Legislature to outlaw ractrack bets.
Dr. Norris used the pulpit of First Baptist Church to attack vice and prostitution. Hell's Half Acre, the "red light district" at the sound end of downtown Fort Worth became one of his main targets. He joined forces with the officials from Camp Bowie, a major military training camp located nearby, to put pressure on city officials to enforce the law which eventually lead to the closing of the area. Today, the Tarrant County Covention Center and the Water Gardens are located on this site.
A mock funeral parade to "bury John Barleycorn" was held in 1919 when Prohibition passes.
Many times when he went to a town to hold a meeting, he would be denied the use of the city auditorium. On one occassion he stated, "All that is needed is a flat bed truck, five acres and the blue sky." He had "an inordinate love of controversy" even in his student years at Baylor.
He was repeatedly threatened with hanging, shooting and being run out of town.
Dr. Norris joined William Jennings Bryan in his fight against evolution. He was called by Bryan to Dayton, Tennessee, to be one of the key witnesses at the Scopes Trail. He was not able to attend but did send a court stenographer to take down every word of trial.
In time, he gained a national reputation as a fighter and champion of what he regarded as Biblical truth. He often said, "When I die, let it be put on my tombstone--Here lies a man who never turned his back in the day of battle."
Traveler
Dr. Norris traveled the world, visiting Tokyo, Italy, England and Jerusalem, where he established a church in 1951. He conducted revivals in 46 states as well as Great Britain, Germany, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, China amd Switzerland. He made many round-the-world trips in his lifetime.
L-R: Luther Peak, J. Frank Norris, G. B. Vick, Wendell Zimmerman
1947
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Fort Worth newspaper man Alf Evans wrote, "In Fort Worth, there was an Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not mess with J. Frank Norris."
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On August 12, 1952, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published the following statement: "The force of his personality was enormous. The controversies surrounding him were frequent and noisy. He had the caulty of binding his friends and followers to him with hoops of steel, and the kindred quality of making implacable opponents, whom he always nettled and sometimes frustrated. But deep in his character, whatever the controversies, was the spirit of the builder. He built in beliefs, in numbers, and in stone. These monuments remain."
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