Billy Sunday

Life

Sunday was born in 1862 into a poor family near Ames, Iowa. His father, a Union soldier, died of illness while in the army shortly after Sunday's birth. As a result, Sunday spent part of his childhood in an Iowa orphans' home for the children of soldiers. Known for his speed, he joined the Chicago White Stockings in 1883 and later played for Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. He was known more for his baserunning and fielding than for his hitting.

Around 1886 he encountered a street-preaching team from the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago and experienced conversion. He then began attending Jefferson Park Presbyterian Church, where he was elected an elder. In 1888 he married Helen Thompson, with whom he had four children. He died in Chicago in 1935.

Ministry and Achievements

In 1891 Sunday left baseball to work for the Chicago YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association). From 1893 to 1895 he served as an advance man for the evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman, learning how to organize campaigns and how to preach. In 1896 he held his first campaign under his own name in Garner, Iowa. In 1903, despite having no theological training, he was ordained a minister by the Chicago Presbytery.

His preaching was famous for its everyday language, slang, and vigorous physical gestures. His meetings were held in large temporary tabernacles with sawdust spread on the floor, so coming forward to make a decision for Christ came to be called "hitting the sawdust trail." From 1907 his wife, Helen, managed the planning and finances of the campaigns, and he worked with a team that included the song leader Homer Rodeheaver. During a ten-week campaign in New York in 1917, some 98,000 people reportedly made decisions for Christ. The offering he received for that campaign is said to have been donated to the Red Cross and other charities connected with the First World War. By one estimate, nearly 100 million people heard him preach over the course of some 300 campaigns. He was an ardent prohibitionist, and many hold that his preaching played a significant role in the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Prohibition) in 1919.

Influence on the Korean Church

The research for this article found no record that Sunday ever visited Korea or had any direct relationship with the Korean church. Nevertheless, the citywide union campaign model that he popularized, including the use of advance teams and the public invitation to make a decision, is regarded as having paved the way for modern mass evangelistic crusades. This approach was later carried forward by Billy Graham and others, and the Korean church experienced a similar format through events such as the 1973 Billy Graham Crusade.

Assessment

Sunday is classified as a conservative evangelical who preached biblical inerrancy, Christ's substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection, and the imminent Second Coming, and as one who embraced the doctrines of fundamentalism. His supporters credit him with presenting the gospel in plain language to working-class and ordinary people who did not attend church.

On the other hand, some traditional ministers and churchgoers of his day were uncomfortable with what they regarded as his excessively sensational methods. He has also been criticized for emphasizing decisions and moral reform at the expense of doctrine. Critics further noted that far fewer people persevered in the faith than had made decisions at his meetings, and Sunday himself reportedly admitted that he had never been satisfied with the results of any of his campaigns.