1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Ernest D. Pickering

Discussion in 'Fundamental Baptist Forum' started by TheOldJudge, Feb 21, 2022.

Top Posters
  1. TheOldJudge

    TheOldJudge Member

    Joined:
    Jul 3, 2021
    Messages:
    48
    Likes Received:
    10
    Faith:
    Baptist
    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.
     
    #1 TheOldJudge, Feb 21, 2022
  2. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2000
    Messages:
    30,285
    Likes Received:
    507
    Faith:
    Baptist
    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.
     
    #2 Dr. Bob, Feb 22, 2022
    • Like Like x 1
  3. RipponRedeaux

    RipponRedeaux Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2019
    Messages:
    2,094
    Likes Received:
    302
    Faith:
    Baptist
    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.
     
    #3 RipponRedeaux, Feb 22, 2022
  4. 37818

    37818 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2018
    Messages:
    16,097
    Likes Received:
    1,244
    Faith:
    Baptist
    That is of a Willbur N. Pickering. I was, though, wondering if he was any relationship to Dr. Ernest D. Pickering.
     
    #4 37818, Feb 22, 2022
  5. RipponRedeaux

    RipponRedeaux Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2019
    Messages:
    2,094
    Likes Received:
    302
    Faith:
    Baptist
    My mistake. I saw the name Pickering and automatically thought of Wilbur.
     
    #5 RipponRedeaux, Feb 22, 2022
  6. 37818

    37818 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2018
    Messages:
    16,097
    Likes Received:
    1,244
    Faith:
    Baptist
    I did too. Your mistake permitted to ask the question.
     
    #6 37818, Feb 22, 2022
  7. JesusFan

    JesusFan Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2011
    Messages:
    8,913
    Likes Received:
    240
    Were his criticisms valid?
     
    #7 JesusFan, Feb 23, 2022
  8. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2005
    Messages:
    19,356
    Likes Received:
    1,776
    Faith:
    Baptist
    #8 John of Japan, Feb 23, 2022
  9. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2005
    Messages:
    19,356
    Likes Received:
    1,776
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Pretty sure they were not related, though I've been wrong before. :)
     
    #9 John of Japan, Feb 23, 2022
    • Agree Agree x 1
  10. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2006
    Messages:
    9,796
    Likes Received:
    700
    Faith:
    Baptist
    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
     
    #10 Jerome, Feb 23, 2022
    • Agree Agree x 1
  11. agedman

    agedman Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2011
    Messages:
    11,023
    Likes Received:
    1,108
    Faith:
    Baptist
    No rock throwing, today. Kids are too consumed with their phones and games to even glance at were they are going, much less listen.
     
    #11 agedman, Feb 23, 2022
  12. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2006
    Messages:
    9,796
    Likes Received:
    700
    Faith:
    Baptist
    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."
     
    #12 Jerome, Feb 25, 2022
  13. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2006
    Messages:
    9,796
    Likes Received:
    700
    Faith:
    Baptist
    His granddaughter:

    Amber Jacobs - Wikipedia

    "a former professional basketball player in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), for the Los Angeles Sparks."
     
    #13 Jerome, Feb 25, 2022
  14. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2006
    Messages:
    9,796
    Likes Received:
    700
    Faith:
    Baptist
    #14 Jerome, Feb 25, 2022
    • Like Like x 1
  15. timf

    timf Member

    Joined:
    Oct 4, 2012
    Messages:
    69
    Likes Received:
    5
    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.
     
    #15 timf, Feb 28, 2022
  16. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2000
    Messages:
    30,285
    Likes Received:
    507
    Faith:
    Baptist
    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
     
    #16 Dr. Bob, Feb 28, 2022
  17. TheOldJudge

    TheOldJudge Member

    Joined:
    Jul 3, 2021
    Messages:
    48
    Likes Received:
    10
    Faith:
    Baptist
    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.
     
    #17 TheOldJudge, Jul 7, 2022
    • Like Like x 1
  18. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2003
    Messages:
    38,982
    Likes Received:
    2,615
    Faith:
    Baptist
    #18 Salty, Jul 8, 2022
    • Informative Informative x 1
  19. TheOldJudge

    TheOldJudge Member

    Joined:
    Jul 3, 2021
    Messages:
    48
    Likes Received:
    10
    Faith:
    Baptist
    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.
     
    #19 TheOldJudge, Jul 11, 2022
    • Like Like x 1
(You must log in or sign up to post here.)
Loading...