J. Frank Norris

J. Frank Norris

6 Sermons|1 Images
John Franklyn Norris, commonly known as J. Frank Norris (September 18, 1877 – August 20, 1952), was a fiery Baptist preacher and a leading figure in American Christian fundamentalism during the early 20th century. Born in Dadeville, Alabama, to sharecropper parents Warner and Mary Norris, he grew up in poverty in Hubbard, Texas, where his father’s alcoholism and a traumatic shooting at age 15—when cattle thieves attacked his family—shaped his resilient spirit. Converted at 13 during a Methodist revival, Norris soon felt called to preach, later studying at Baylor University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he graduated as valedictorian in 1905. His early career included editing The Baptist Standard (1907–1909), crusading against liquor and gambling, before he took the helm of First Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1909, a post he held until his death. Norris’s ministry was as dynamic as it was controversial, earning him nicknames like “The Texas Tornado” and “The Fighting Fundamentalist.” From 1935 to 1950, he simultaneously pastored Temple Baptist Church in Detroit, growing his combined congregations to over 25,000, arguably making him America’s first megachurch pastor. A fierce opponent of modernism, evolution, communism, and Catholicism, he broke with the Southern Baptist Convention in 1924 after exposing evolution teachings at Baylor, founding the Premillennial Missionary Baptist Fellowship (later World Baptist Fellowship) and the Fundamentalist Baptist Bible Institute. His life was marked by sensational events, including a 1926 acquittal for killing an unarmed man in self-defense in his church office, and suspicions of arson tied to church fires. Norris died of a heart attack at a youth camp in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1952, leaving a polarizing legacy of bold preaching, mass influence via radio and his newspaper The Searchlight, and an unyielding stand for his beliefs.
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