W.A. Criswell is a name well known in Baptist circles.
He served as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastored one of the largest churches in America for five decades. His name even adorns a college in Texas. But while many are familiar with the name “Criswell,” few know the man behind the name as well as O.S. Hawkins. With his book “Criswell: His Life and Times,” Hawkins aims to help readers see who the famed pastor was as a man, husband, father, friend and mentor.
Chancellor of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Hawkins served as the pastoral successor to Criswell at First Baptist Dallas and now as his biographer with “Criswell: His Life and Times.”
Hawkins believes now, more than 20 years after Criswell’s passing, is the right moment to tell his story.
Bridging generational gap
“We live in a day when some of the older people in ministry think the younger ones are irreverent, and the younger ones in ministry seem to think the older ones are irrelevant,” Hawkins said. “Criswell is the one man who bridges that gap. His life lessons and leadership principles are applicable to all today.”
The biography, Hawkins noted, aims to stir up older leaders by way of remembrance and introduce younger leaders to “the most influential figure in 20th-century evangelicalism.”
Hawkins traces Criswell’s life from virtual poverty on the Texas plains and his early days as a small church pastor through his time leading First Baptist Dallas, including handling the successes and regrets that came in his life and ministry.
“As someone once said, ‘Giants dwindle into ordinary men when we really get to know them.’ In the midst of his far-reaching greatness and endless accomplishments, when all is said and done, he was, as James said of Elijah, ‘a man with a nature like ours,’” Hawkins said.
‘Knew where he was going’
Criswell was known as a leader both nationally and at the local church level. Hawkins said three factors enabled Criswell to lead with clarity and consistency.
“He knew where he was going,” Hawkins said. “He never got to an intersection in leadership without already knowing which way he was going to turn. He knew who he was. He never tried to be his esteemed predecessor, George W. Truett, or anyone else but was secure in his own calling. And he knew why he was there. He was moved and motivated by an inner purpose and calling in life and never wavered from it.”
Despite Criswell’s national reach, Hawkins said he would most want to be remembered as a pastor of a local congregation and one who never wavered from his convictions about Scripture and the task to which God has called the church.
“This was all he ever aspired to be,” Hawkins said. “He genuinely loved people, and the Word of God was central to all he was and all he did.”
Surprises along the way
Hawkins believes readers of “Criswell: His Life and Times” may be surprised that, with all his intelligence and acumen, Criswell remained childlike in many ways.
“He never lost the wonder of it all in the work of it all,” Hawkins said. “He had a love and appreciation for beauty, and the simple things of God’s creation never ceased to fascinate him. Well-versed in the arts, he could quote Robert Browning with the same passion and knowledge as he could the apostle Paul.”
For those who read the book, Hawkins said he hopes they would see what God did through Criswell but also what God could do through them.
“My desire is that the reader would see the potential, sometimes hidden, within themselves to be all that God intends them to be,” he said. “This is the story of a boy born in the middle of nowhere, who against all odds and with no ‘connections,’ by the power of his personality and persuasion and his deep conviction of God’s plan for his life, touched the entire world through his pulpit and platform in Dallas.”
When the last page of “Criswell: His Life and Times” is turned, Hawkins said he wants readers to know that “somewhere there is something for me to do that no one else can do exactly like I can do, because I am called to a purpose and am indescribably valuable to God.”
“Criswell: His Life and Times” is published by B&H Publishing Group. It is available for pre-order now and will be released on April 2 at Lifeway.com and other places where books are sold.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Aaron Earls and originally published by Lifeway.
