John Wilbur Chapman
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John Wilbur Chapman (June 17, 1859 in Richmond, Indiana-December 25, 1918 in New York, New York) was a Presbyterian evangelist in the late 19th Century, generally traveling with gospel singer Charles Alexander. His parents were Alexander H. and Lorinda (McWhinney) Chapman.
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[edit] Faith & Education
Chapman grew up attending Quaker Day School and Methodist Sunday School. At age 17, he made a public declaration of his Christian faith and joined the Richmond Presbyterian Church. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Lake Forest University and his seminary degree from Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. He completed his ordination into the ministry 13 April 1881, while still attending Lane. He was later awarded a Doctorate in Divinity from University of Wooster and an LL.D. from Heidelberg University.
[edit] Family
In May 1882, Chapman married Irene Steddon. In April 1886, Irene bore him a daughter whom they called Bertha Irene. Irene died in May 1886, and Chapman remarried on 4 November 1888 to Agnes Pruyn Strain. To that union were born four children: Robert (who died in infancy), John Wilbur, Jr., Alexander Hamilton, and Agnes Pruyn. Losing his second wife on 25 June 1907, Chapman married a third and final time on 30 August 1910 to Mabel Cornelia Moulton.
[edit] Ministry
Chapman took on several pastorates before shifting to the evangelistic circuit. He began preaching with the legendary D. L. Moody in 1893, as well as leading many evangelistic events of his own. Among Chapman's disciples on the evangelistic circuit was William Ashley "Billy" Sunday.
In late 1895, Chapman was appointed Corresponding Secretary of the Presbyterian General Assembly's Committee on Evangelism, overseeing the activities of 51 evangelists in 470 cities. In 1904, Chapman began work on an evangelistic campaign to maximize the efforts of his field evangelists and result in more proselytes. The testing ground for his theories was Pittsburgh, which he divided into nine zones in which simultaneous tent meetings would be occurring. Syracuse, New York was the second city in the campaign, meeting with a satisfactory level of success.
In 1905, John H. Converse, a wealthy Presbyterian philanthropist, offered to underwrite Chapman's expenses if he would re-enter the evangelistic field full time. Converse also set up a trust fund so as to finance Chapman's crusades posthumously. Chapman accepted the offer and in 1907, joined forces with popular gospel singer Charles McCallon Alexander to launch the "Chapman-Alexander Simultaneous Campaign."
The duo assembled an impressive team of evangelists and songleaders and took to the streets. The first joint campaign was held in Philadelphia from March 12 to April 19, 1908. They partitioned the city into 42 sections covered by 21 evangelist-musicians teams. They spent three weeks on each half of the city, resulting in approximately 8000 conversions. It was at a similar Chapman-Alexander event in North Carolina that the legendary King James Only proponent D O Fuller committed to the Christian faith.
In 1909, Chapman demanded that any field evangelist who doubted the inerrancy of Scripture be removed from ministry. Chapman's biography reports, "The first Chapman-Alexander worldwide campaign left Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 26, 1909, and returned November 26. Stops along the way included: Melbourne, Sydney, Ipswitch, Brisbane, Adelaide, Ballarat, Bendigo, and Townsville in Australia; Manila in the Philippines; Hong Kong, Kowloon, Canton, Shanghai, Hankow, Peking and Tientsin in China; Seoul, Korea; Kobe, Kyoto, Tokyo, and Yokohama in Japan."[1]
By the end of 1910, Chapman's "mass evangelism" technique was losing favor in evangelistic circles, and Chapman and Alexander were back to large meeting revivals by 1912. The final Chapman-Alexander revival tour was conducted January 6 to February 13, 1918. In May 1918, Chapman was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, a position which inundated him with such a high level of stress that he developed a serious enough case of gall stones to need emergency surgery December 23 of that year and died on 25 December 1918.
[edit] Pastorates
- College Corner Presbyterian Church (Ohio), 1882
- Liberty Presbyterian Church (Indiana), 1882
- Dutch Reformed Church (Schuylerville, NY), 1883-1885
- First Reformed Church (Albany, NY), 1885-1890
- Bethany Presbyterian (Philadelphia, PA), 1890-1892, 1896-1899
- Fourth Presbyterian Church (New York City, NY), 1899-1902
[edit] Published Works
- Ivory Palaces of the King (1893)
- Receive Ye the Holy Ghost (1894)
- And Peter (1895)
- The Lost Crown (1899)
- The Secret of a Happy Day (1899)
- The Surrendered Life (1899)
- Spiritual Life of the Sunday School (1899)
- Present Day Parables (1900)
- Revivals and Missions (1900)
- From Life to Life (1900)
- The Life and Work of D.L. Moody (1900)
- Present Day Evangelism (1903)
- Fishing for Men (1904)
- Samuel Hopkins Hadley of Water Street (1906)
- Another Mile (1908)
- The Problem of Work (1911)
- Chapman's Pocket Sermons (1911)
- Revival Sermons (1911)
- When Home Is Heaven (1917)
[edit] Hymnography
- One Day
- Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners
- 'Tis Jesus
