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Ernest D. Pickering

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TheOldJudge

Member
I recently received word that a biography of the late Dr. Ernest D. Pickering is being written.

Does anyone here on the Baptist Board have any memories of Dr. Pickering? There is little on the Internet about him once one eliminates discussion related to his written works. What I could find seems to show him as a protegé or successor to Dr. R. V. Clearwaters within the "Minnesota circle" of old.

I would love to hear what the opinions of others are.
 
Dr. Bob

Dr. Bob

Administrator
Administrator
I was young (and now am old) when sitting under the teaching of Dr. Pickering. After salvation, I was privileged to become part of the Fourth Baptist Church of Minneapolis (baptized Easter Sunday 1958). With the closure of Northwestern Seminary after the death of W.B. Riley of First Baptist Church, there was a void in preparing pastors and educators who held to the similar fundamental, Baptist, dispensational, local church, and biblical hermeneutic. In 1956, Central Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary was founded in the expanding facilities of Fourth Baptist.

In 1959 Dr Pickering became pastor of Woodcrest Baptist Church across the river in suburban Fridley, MN. He served on the faculty of Central and its Dean until 1965. I enjoyed his pastoral ministry and sat in many classes as a teen (allowed to take seminary classes even before entering college). He was also speaker at special conferences and retreats for our youth group. I was pleased some years later with in 1988 he moved to the pastorate of the Fourth Baptist Church and assumed the presidency of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. The seminary held 2 and 3-day pastoral workshops at the time and I gladly drove the 1000 miles from the Mountain West to sit under his teaching again.

I count him a godly man, with a passion for fundamentalism and for foreign missions. He helped shape me and my now 50+ years of pastoral ministry and am only saddened that I didn't give him the credit and the thanks he rightly deserved. I leave that to His Savior.
 
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RipponRedeaux

Well-Known Member
In the book The King James Version Debate : A Plea For Realism D.A. Carson devotes a 19 page appendix. at the end. It's called A Critique Of The Identity Of The New Testament Text. In it he deals with Pickering's work called aptly enough The Identity Of The New Testament Text. Carson offers six criticisms of Pickering's material.
 
37818

37818

Well-Known Member
RipponRedeaux said:
In the book The King James Version Debate : A Plea For Realism D.A. Carson devotes a 19 page appendix. at the end. It's called A Critique Of The Identity Of The New Testament Text. In it he deals with Pickering's work called aptly enough The Identity Of The New Testament Text. Carson offers six criticisms of Pickering's material.
Click to expand...
That is of a Willbur N. Pickering. I was, though, wondering if he was any relationship to Dr. Ernest D. Pickering.
 
J

JesusFan

Well-Known Member
RipponRedeaux said:
In the book The King James Version Debate : A Plea For Realism D.A. Carson devotes a 19 page appendix. at the end. It's called A Critique Of The Identity Of The New Testament Text. In it he deals with Pickering's work called aptly enough The Identity Of The New Testament Text. Carson offers six criticisms of Pickering's material.
Click to expand...
Were his criticisms valid?
 
Jerome

Jerome

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
RipponRedeaux said:
In the book The King James Version Debate : A Plea For Realism D.A. Carson...deals with Pickering's work...The Identity Of The New Testament Text. Carson offers six criticisms of Pickering's material.
Click to expand...
Servant of Lord Jesus said:
Were his criticisms valid?
Click to expand...
37818 said:
That is of a Willbur N. Pickering. I was, though, wondering if he was any relationship to Dr. Ernest D. Pickering.
Click to expand...
No!

Back on topic (Ernest Pickering):

Biographical sketch of Ernest Pickering published in the Baptist Bulletin

"He was reared by devout parents, Salvation Army evangelists....once he reached high school, Pickering became a street-corner evangelist, 'dodging rock throwers and tomato throwers,' as he put it..."

pickering.jpg
 
agedman

agedman

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Jerome said:
No!

Back on topic (Ernest Pickering):

Biographical sketch of Ernest Pickering published in the Baptist Bulletin

"He was reared by devout parents, Salvation Army evangelists....once he reached high school, Pickering became a street-corner evangelist, 'dodging rock throwers and tomato throwers,' as he put it..."

View attachment 5855
Click to expand...
No rock throwing, today. Kids are too consumed with their phones and games to even glance at were they are going, much less listen.
 
Jerome

Jerome

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Jerome said:
Biographical sketch of Ernest Pickering published in the Baptist Bulletin

"He was reared by devout parents, Salvation Army evangelists....
Click to expand...

Here they are, father also named Ernest, and mother Evelyn, from a profile in the Longview (Texas) Sunday News-Journal, Oct. 12, 1958, p. 3-A:
Longview_News_Journal_Sun__Oct_12__1958_.jpg

"Pickering [Sr.] was handed his commission in the 'Army' by the late Commander Evangeline Booth, daughter of the founder of the Salvation Army who was then national commander in the United States."

"While holding the rank of captain in 1926, Pickering married Capt. Evelyn Dinwoodie....They have two sons, Ernest Jr., national executive secretary of Independent Fundamental Churches of America, and William....Mrs. Pickering holds equal rank with her husband."
 
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timf

Active Member
I used to attend Forth Baptist and remember Dr. Pickering as being able to give a great sermon. However, he perhaps should have attended a little more to his family as his son ran into troubles.
 
Dr. Bob

Dr. Bob

Administrator
Administrator
timf said:
Dr. Pickering . . . perhaps should have attended a little more to his family as his son ran into troubles.
Click to expand...

This is often the case with godly men, preachers, leaders. As Billy Sunday's lament, "I've won the whole world and lost my own boys" explains
 
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TheOldJudge

Member
A friend of mine has been assisting Dr. Pickering's children in doing research on the pre-GARBC ministry of their father. One thing that was shared with me that is interesting to the MBBC/MBU alumnus in me is how closely Dr. Pickering worked with Dr. Cedarholm and Dr. Hollowood in his CBA of A and Minnesota Baptist Convention days (1959-1965).

Those are names with which I was intimately familiar during my tenure in Wisconsin, although both of them were no longer active presences on the Watertown campus by then. My knowledge of Dr. Pickering had always portrayed him as a different "stripe" of Fundamental Baptist; nevertheless, I have seen the pictures of him smiling at Seminary and Convention events with much younger versions of the two aforementioned men than I am used to seeing.
 
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TheOldJudge

Member
Thank you, Salty, for the link to the Wikipedia article. He was a truly special man. I was telling my friend that he almost seems like the antithesis of Jack Hyles, Fundamentalism's "anti-Hyles," if you will.

He would only be ninety-three years old if he were still alive today. Good men die young too often.
 
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