Featured A well-known evangelist's silliness...

George Clark Rankin was brought up in the old 1800's way in which he describes the beauty of revivals in his lifetime. He also mentions Robert Sayers Sheffey, of whom Bob Jones University made a movie.. In describing his visit to Virginia as a circuit rider he goes on to say...

I passed my examinations and that year I was sent to the Wytheville Station and Circuit. The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.

The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.

He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.

He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.

It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.

Robert Sheffey would go on to win multitudes for Christ, and the South Carolinian Bob Jones University would go on to write a movie about him. I would say this man knew very little theologically.

 

Would Bob Jones University have made of movie of him if he didn't?

 

Roby, you mentioned that Roloff claimed to be IFB. There is no reason to question that. He was a fundamentalist. From his youth to his death he was a member and/or pastor of Baptist churches. After the mid-1950s his affiliation was Baptist independent of organized denominational entities (specifically, he left the SBC). If quirkiness excluded folks from being considered IFB, just about the whole mess might be excluded!!

According to Wikipedia (which unfortunately I have not been able to confirm elsewhere), Roloff's last recorded sermon was preached at Lee Roberson's Tennessee Temple University -- certainly a bellwether institution among IF Baptists.

My opinion is that many viewed Roloff sort of like an eccentric but beloved old uncle. He was an outspoken leader against "denominationalism", and a very successful evangelist who gained the respect of his peers. When the quirkiness came out they likely just applied the "love covers a multitude of sins" type approach. Maybe sort of like Stonewall Jackson. Jackson was a pure oddball in many respects, but put him on the field of battle and he delivered.

Back in those days, when I was traveling to and from job sites, I would listen to The Family Altar on the radio. I enjoyed what I liked (even his singing) and tuned out when he rolled off on the dietary and other such stuff.

None of this is excusing where Roloff erred, but a sincere attempt to understand why, in his day, he was still a respected figure among Independent Fundamental Baptists in spite of some views that he held that were uncommon among them.

 

Fair enough. No one is asking you to ignore anything, and you don't even have to listen to him on the radio or computer if you don't want to. Others' mileage will vary.

 

I liked Lester Roloff... Until we get to the issue of his home for females.

 

Seriously, does anyone share the a gospel anymore?

I have had only 1 person that ever came at me with the Gospel and I had just become a believer in 1983.

that’s been a couple of yrs ago

 

My dear friend lived his life just as he preached.

He was not the least duplicitous and not a single stain that folks tried to attach to him was every proved to have a factual base.

He graduated from Baylor University and is known to have put himself through school selling the milk from a cow he brought, and selling eggs.

He was a remarkable man who loved his family, the church and especially the Lord.

 

Not true.

The attorney general and later governor of Texas (Mark white) gave all the works of the Roloff Ministries probably the most thorough review than any corporation, even engaged Texas and national news to investigate and found not a single crime.

After all the investigations, the licensing board plead with the ministries to take a license, but he refused.

Not a single accusation was shown true.

Certainly, his homes were not “comfort inns,” one does not take in troubled teens and adults and expect all joy.

Roloff was also not a vegetarian, but was definitely not for food additives (nitrate and other preservatives that are added to much offered in stores), therefore the folks “reaped what they sowed” and ate very healthy diets.

I am not posting that he and I agreed on everything, but I can say that until his death, I could cal him, talk to him, fellowship with him, and still grieve that he was taken from us.

One thing is certain, he left a lasting impression on any and all that met him.

 

One day old Lester was preaching in a conference with Bob Jones Sr. and John R. Rice on the platform behind him. He railed against TV and how awful it is. Old "Dr. Bob" leaned over to Rice and said, "Dr. John, Dr. John, I don't care what Lester says, I still like 'I Love Lucy.'"

That's the story I heard. Wasn't there, can't guarantee it. But on old Lester's side, Lucy lied to her hubby all the time.

 

Unfortunately, a dude got ahold of Lester's dietary principles, and started the "Hallelujah Diet," a rediculus program if I ever knew one.

 

There is one sure thing about Roloff. He was at least as healthy a person who has ever died prematurely in an airplane crash. This proves that "bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."

This brings me to my comments about the charge of his criminal activity. It is speculation unless evidence is produced to confirm the charge. Hearsay will not do the job and in the absence of it, it is gossip, and to just state these things about a preacher without witnesses is at least as great a crime against heaven as the actions of the one accused.

This op should cause one to ponder the validity of the "office" of evangelist which opens the door for celebrity status of preachers, most of whom (it seems to me) do everything but evangelize in the prosecution of their ministries. The local church can do, and should do everything an evangelist does and if he falls the harm will not be world wide and written in history books and debated about on forums like this. The local church is equipped for this with it's officers and members.

2 Timothy 4:5
But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

 

What is the character of the ones making the charge? How did they convince you? I think you are making my point. Thank you for that.

 

Neither is Bro Roloff.

 

That man is Lester Roloff. He certainly strayed from Romans 14 when preaching that kind of stuff, and he had no business preaching it.
Also, would God I were half the Christian that bro. Roloff was. God's hand was on that man's preaching and even his enemies recognized that God used him.