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Arthur Tappan Pierson Edit Profile

clergyman editor promoter writer

Arthur Tappan Pierson was an American Presbyterian clergyman, promoter of missionary activities, editor, and writer.

Background

He was born on March 6, 1837 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Stephen Haines and Sally Ann (Wheeler) Pierson. His father was a descendant of Abraham Pierson the elder, through his son Thomas. Up to the time of the financial panic of 1837, Stephen Pierson had been the cashier and confidential clerk of Arthur Tappan.

Education

At the age of eleven Arthur Pierson entered the Mount Washington Collegiate Institute and two years later, the Collegiate Institute at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson, from which he shortly transferred to the Ossining School, Sing Sing, of which his brother-in-law, Rev. J. P. Lundy, was principal.

Completing his course in the winter of 1852-53, he entered Hamilton College the following September. Here he took high stand as a scholar, was active in religious work, and contributed much verse and prose to New York periodicals. He graduated from Hamilton in 1857, and from Union Theological Seminary in 1860.

Career

On May 13 of 1860 he was ordained by the Third New York Presbytery. After having supplied a Congregational church in West Winsted, Connecticut, on September 5, 1860, he was installed as pastor of the First Congregational Church, Binghamton, New York.

Later he served the Presbyterian Church at Waterford, New York (1863 - 69), and the Fort Street Church, Detroit (1869 - 82). During these years he became an effective and popular preacher. In 1876 his church edifice in Detroit burned, and while it was being rebuilt services were held in an opera house. Expecting a greater field of usefulness along lines in harmony with these views, in the fall of 1882 he accepted a call to the Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, but, disappointed in the cooperation he received, he remained but a few months. From 1883 to 1889, however, he had a fruitful pastorate at Bethany Church, Philadelphia.

During his Philadelphia pastorate he became nationally known as an inspiring leader at missionary and Bible conferences. A friend of Dwight L. Moody, he was prominent at Northfield gatherings and it was in no small part through the enthusiasm which he aroused that the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions was started. In 1886 he published The Crisis of Missions, which did much to arouse missionary activity in the churches. This was followed by The Divine Enterprise of Missions (1891), The Miracles of Missions (4 vols. , 1891 - 1901) and others.

In 1888 he became associated with James M. Sherwood in the editorship of the Missionary Review, and after Sherwood's death, two years later, he was sole editor for the rest of his life. Under his supervision the periodical became a picturesque and popular organ.

After attending the World Missionary Conference at London in 1888, he made a tour of Scotland with Rev. A. J. Gordon in the interest of missions. His success was such that the next year, resigning his pastorate, he again visited Great Britain, and thereafter devoted himself to evangelistic activity, lecturing and preaching both in the United States and abroad. When Charles H. Spurgeon became ill in 1891 he called Pierson to take his place at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, and he continued to supply there for two years, Spurgeon having died in the meantime.

In the latter part of his career he adopted and promulgated the views on personal holiness held by the Keswick Convention, and in 1903 published The Keswick Movement in Precept and Practice. In October 1910 he started on a tour of the missions in the Far East, but after visiting Japan and Korea was forced by the condition of his health to return to his home in Brooklyn, where he died.

Achievements

  • Arthur Tappan Pierson wrote over fifty books, and gave Bible lectures as part of a transatlantic preaching ministry that made him famous in Scotland, England, and Korea. One of his most significant books was, In Christ Jesus (1898). Pierson's most notable influence was due to his commitment to orthodoxy: he joined other concerned Christian leaders in publishing "The Fundamentals", a series of booklets designed to answer the critics of Christianity. This marked the beginning of the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy in American churches. Since then, Pierson has often been called the "Father of Fundamentalism". Besides, he was a consulting editor for the original "Scofield Reference Bible", "Missionary Review".

Religion

He became convinced that believer baptism was correct and on February 1, 1896 was baptized by Spurgeon's brother, James A. Spurgeon at the age of fifty-eight.

Views

He came to feel keenly that the chief work of the Church is "to rescue unsaved souls, " and that conventional church buildings with elaborate architecture and rented pews hinder access to the common people.

Personality

He was a man of intense zeal, profoundly convinced of the inspired truth of the Bible, of the efficacy of prayer, and of the second coming of Christ; and with a gift for drawing which enabled him by charts and pictures to illustrate his discourses.

As time went on, concern for speedy world-wide evangelization possessed him with increasing force.

Connections

On July 12 of 1860 he married Sarah Frances Benedict. Delavan Leonard Pierson was his first son.

Father:
Stephen Haines Pierson

Mother:
Sally Ann (Wheeler) Pierson

Spouse:
Sarah Frances Benedict

brother-in-law:
Rev. J. P. Lundy

Son:
Delavan Leonard Pierson

ancestor:
Abraham Pierson

Friend:
Dwight L. Moody

associate:
James M. Sherwood