Where God's Business Is Big Business

Downtown Dallas on Sunday morning has the look of frontier tranquillity. The streets are clean and nearly free of traffic--except on the midtown corners that surround the First Baptist Church. Here, beginning shortly before 8 a.m., cars crowd in to disgorge loads of early worshipers. A few of the young women wear miniskirts, bouffant hairdos and unlikely eyelashes. Their female elders, considerably less chic, carry the aura of talcum and printed voile that spells the Sabbath all over the South.

With 14,825 members, the First Baptist Church of Dallas is the biggest Southern Baptist church in the U.S. This year the church celebrated its centennial and, coincidentally, its pastor, the Rev. Dr. W. A. Criswell, is serving as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Despite its urban location, First Baptist preserves the folksiness and fervent spirit of a country congregation. Architecturally, the church is a 19th century red brick horror, but inside age and polish have mellowed its determined ugliness. The services, too, have a turn-of-the-century flavor. Sermons, by Criswell or one of his three assistant pastors, are four-square Gospel messages; the congregation's favorite hymns are What a Friend We Have in Jesus and Need Thee Every Hour.

Baby of the Week. Worship is only the beginning of First Baptist's activities. Between the two morning services (the second is at 10:50), twelve Sunday school classes teach every age group from kindergarten kids to "senior adults." Babies are cared for in a beautifully appointed nursery. In one ornate crib reposes "the Baby of the Week," the youngest of all the infants making their debuts in the nursery that day.

First Baptist's facilities, which take up three blocks, are kept humming by a host of other goings on. The two top floors of the parking building (capacity: 300 cars) are given over to a mammoth gymnasium, a bowling alley and game and craft rooms. The recreation facilities are open year-round from early morning until 10 p.m. There are adult-education and hobby classes in everything from Spanish to candlemaking. These manifold activities help account for First Baptist's popularity, and all are free, except bowling. The costs are paid for by the church's capacious budget. Last year's budget of $1,801,124 was oversubscribed, and this year's outlay totals a record $2,100,000. The offering each Sunday averages $30,000.

Remembered Sermon. The man who runs this vast ecclesiastical enterprise, appropriately enough, has a faith in capitalism that almost matches his fervent faith in Jesus. The title of the sermon with which he kicked off this year's budget drive was called "God's Business Is Big Business." A spellbinding orator, Criswell was chosen by First Baptist in rather an odd way. A graduate of Baylor University, he happened to be preaching in a small Kentucky backwoods church one Sunday in 1934 when a prominent Baptist layman from Nashville, John L. Hill, was present. Hill never forgot the sermon. After the death in 1944 of First Baptist's best-known preacher, Dr. George W. Truett, the congregation consulted Hill about a successor. He wrote back: "W. A. Criswell is the only man in all the earth for you."

Criswell, who was then a pastor in Oklahoma, preached one guest sermon in Dallas and received the call. His decision to accept, he told his new congregation, was prompted in part by a dream in which Truett commanded him: "You must go down and preach to my people." Criswell has done so ever since, skillfully blending humor, homely anecdote, snippets of poetry, and straight-from-the-shoulder Biblical literalism.

"If you don't accept the Bible as authoritative," he says, "then one man's speculation is as good as the next man's, and religion just washes out." When Criswell is not preaching, he is often off on trips abroad, from which he returns full of zeal for more evangelism but perturbed by the miseries of modern travel. This month, he took off for a two-week trip to Israel.

Criswell and First Baptist have frequently been accused of being segregationist. The pastor insists that "the membership is open" (one Negro is enrolled) and sadly adds that a few black ministers forced him to shut down a mission run by his church for Negroes. "There were 7,000 people without a church of any kind, but they made us close it," he says. "They told me they would rather have the people go to the devil than for me to go and preach to them and bring them to Jesus. Incredible!"

While Criswell may be criticized by others, he is wholeheartedly admired by his parishioners. Recently the church held a week-long series of parties to celebrate his 24th year in the Dallas pulpit. "Pastor," as everyone calls him, footed the bill (his annual salary is $26,000). The gymnasium was hung with garlands of flowers and hundreds of balloons; an enormous U.S. flag covered one entire wall. At the climax of the evening, Dr. & Mrs. Criswell, wearing Uncle Sam hats, sat on the stage in rocking chairs, while their daughter Anne, an accomplished soprano, presented a program of popular songs and old favorites. It was a fitting tribute to the preacher whom everyone at First Baptist believes to be, in the words of retired Judge Pierce McBride, a church member, "the greatest pulpit man in the world."

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