A W Pink: Against The Tide

Christian preachers who give close attention to God’s Word, evading fashionable theological trends, are frequently set aside. That was what happened to A. W. Pink (1886-1952), an able speaker whose constant desire was to magnify his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. During decades, when very few would tolerate discerning Bible examinations, he taught plainly. After rejections in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom he devoted further decades writing his monthly magazine, “Studies in the Scriptures,” from his always humble rented home; with his final 12 years on Scotland’s Isle of Lewis. Remarkably A. W. Pink became recognised as one of the most able and most prolific Evangelical writers of the century.

Iain H. Murray: “The Life of Arthur W. Pink.” (Banner of Truth. 1982. 272 pages) [New edition pending]

Written three decades after Pink’s death when his books were in demand with reprints from at least five printing houses: Baker Books, Banner of Truth, Reiner Publications, Moody Press, and Klock & Klock. In preparation for this work the biographer was able to contact people in three continents who remembered times when Arthur Pink preached frequently to large congregations. Some had treasured letters along with extensive collections of “Studies in the Scriptures.”

  Arthur Walkington Pink was born in Nottingham, England, to Christian parents. While a young man he had a dangerous attraction to theosophy until his father challenged him with a Bible text: “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Prov. 14:12) From that occasion in 1908 Arthur marked his conversion and set about an exact examination of Scripture. Resolving not to enter some British theological college he travelled to the United States of America to attend the Moody Institute in Chicago. That only lasted two months and the impatient man moved to Colorado preaching in a mining community. Other pastorates followed in California, then in Kentucky where he married a devout Christian lady, Vera E. Russell, during 1916. She would assist very greatly by making their home and typing his “Studies in the Scripture” for 31 years. After other brief pastorates they resolved to travel to Australia.

Sydney, Australia. Pastor L. Sale-Harrison, at the Ashfield Baptist Tabernacle, welcomed them in Sydney’s central western suburbs in April 1925. Pink preached there on a variety of topics; some specifically evangelistic, others doctrinal. As he became familiar with Sydney’s theological ‘atmosphere’ he increasingly recognised the need then was for “addresses on the much neglected but most important truths of God’s Sovereignty and Divine Election. The weather was wet and cold, yet from four to five hundred came out, Mondays to Fridays inclusive, and on Sundays the Tabernacle was packed, many extra seats having to be brought in. The Lord most signally honoured his Word, saints being edified and sinners saved.” In addition to delivering as many as ten addresses per week Pink continued to produce “Studies in the Scriptures.” Many new subscriptions were then received from Australians, of whom some continued throughout the remaining decades.

  At the end of July Dr. Pink, as he then styled himself, moved further west to the suburb of Auburn where he had a prior commitment. There he continued for “two very happy weeks enjoying the most hearty co-operation of its widely loved Pastor Cleugh Black.” Pink conducted six Bible-teaching Campaigns, and was about to start another, when the tide changed. During August 1925 the NSW Baptist Ministers Fraternal found objections to his preaching. There was no question that any Baptist Church constitution was infringed, or that Pink’s theology differed from what C. H. Spurgeon had taught, and that had been accepted in New South Wales via a number of students from Spurgeon’s College. Still that “hierarchy” of the Baptist pastors could not abide the Biblical doctrines of grace such as presented in the Baptist Confession of Faith (1689).

  Shortly afterwards Pink published an evaluation in his “Studies”: “General religious conditions here are very similar to those which obtain in the U.S.A. The vast majority of the churches are in a sorry state. Those that are out-and-out worldly are at their wits’ end to invent new devices for drawing a crowd. Others which still preserve an outward form of godliness provide nothing substantial for the soul; there is little ministering of Christ to the heart and little preaching of ‘sound doctrine’, without which souls cannot be built up and established in the faith. The vast majority of the ‘pastors’ summon to their aid some professional ‘evangelist’, who, for two to four weeks, puts on a high pressure campaign and secures sufficient new ‘converts’ to take the place of those who have ‘lapsed’ since he was last with them. What a farce it all is! What an acknowledgment of their own failure! Imagine C. H. Spurgeon needing some evangelist to preach the Gospel for him for a month each year! Why do not these well-paid ‘pastors’ heed 2 Timothy 4:5 and themselves ‘do the work of an evangelist’, and thus ‘make full proof of their ministry’?”

“The great need in Australia today is for God-sent and God-appointed men, who will not shun to declare all the council of God; men in whom the Word of Christ dwells richly, so that they can say with the apostle, ‘Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel’; men on whom rests the fear of God, so that they are delivered from the fear of man.” Still very true in 2003.

  From September 1925 Arthur Pink preached every Lord’s Day and Wednesday for three weeks for the Strict & Particular Baptist Church in Belvoir Street, Sydney. After that the invitation was extended for a further three months. When that concluded Mr. & Mrs. Pink, after careful examination of the written constitution at Belvoir Street, applied for membership of the congregation. In March 1926 they were received into fellowship, with A. W. Pink appointed as pastor. He told his readers of the circumstances: “Goodly numbers of those whom we reached in the early meetings have continued to attend regularly and new ones are being gradually added. Never before, during our 16 years in the ministry have we experienced such blessing and joy of souls, such liberty of utterance and such encouraging response as we have in this highly favoured portion of Christ’s vineyard.” He had never been busier; in twelve months he had preached 300 times in Sydney, continued writing his “Studies in the Scriptures”, also commencing three Bible Study Classes in the suburbs to help “the needy and starving sheep of Christ.” He believed he had “a congenial church-home, and hoped to remain till the Lord came for them.”

  Those congenial circumstances turned when some members at Belvoir Street, hostile at any hint of the ‘easy-believism’ of Fundamentalism, suspected Pink’s attention to human responsibility was in fact Arminian. Previous preachers at Belvoir Street had given a constant “menu” of God’s Sovereignty without declaring the hearer’s responsibility. That doctrinal imbalance had become so entrenched with the majority that Pink was quite unsuccessful in several attempts at explaining his theological purpose. Strangely their complaint was exactly the opposite of what the Baptist Union pastors believed was his failing. Where one denomination believed Pink was Hyper-Calvinist the other suspected that he harboured a dangerous Arminianism. Both Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism had been grounds for prolonged contests in Baptist churches:

Iain H. Murray: “Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism. The Battle for Gospel Preaching.” (Banner of Truth. 1995)

Iain H. Murray: “The Forgotten Spurgeon.” (1966. Banner of Truth. 1973. 254 pages)

  It became necessary for Pastor Pink to depart Belvoir Street in September 1927, in company with about 40% of the membership. Late in the month 26 people held a meeting to found an independent congregation in Sydney’s near western suburb of Summer Hill. A lease was obtained on a hall for use each Lord’s Day, Pink was to be the preacher with a moderate salary, and other necessary arrangements were made. Generally the circumstances were agreeable, yet there were aspects that troubled Pink. After a few months the pastor announced his resignation to a stunned congregation. Arthur & Vera Pink departed by ship on July 20:1928 believing, as he later wrote, “a corporate testimony for Christ had become impossible” in Sydney.

Years of Searching. In England he obtained only two brief opportunities to preach during four months. They rented a seaside cottage for the winter, then sailed for the United States. After calling on friends in Pennsylvania they arrived at Morton’s Gap, Kentucky in May 1929. That was Vera’s homeland; a house was rented and they set up home among simple, unsophisticated farming people where the preacher commenced his work. But again that proved not to be a lasting spiritual home. They departed in mid October 1929 for another small rural Baptist Church where the pastor invited Pink’s assistance. That man, who appeared from his letters to be godly, proved to be lacking in both his person and his arrangements in the congregation. Next they travelled by train 3 thousand miles west to Los Angeles, California to take part in a tent campaign for several weeks, and commence a Bible class. Still they remained without a spiritual home.

  A note in “Studies in the Scriptures” during 1930 told readers that after having “travelled completely around the world and ministered the Word in many places but there is no church known to us where we could hold membership. But if you are a member of a church where the Scripture is followed in all its arrangements, and its pastor and office bearers are God-fearing men and honour him with all your heart and do everything in your power to strengthen their hands.” Their next move was back to Pennsylvania by train in anticipation of exercising a ministry in several small groups, again staying briefly with several friends along the way. Those anticipated openings did not materialise.

  The places they were constantly visiting were of the Fundamentalist class where attachment to the Bible was vehemently professed, along with a feverish rush to win souls. With that Pink wrote of them not finding “time for definite, reverent, importunate crying to the Lord for his Spirit.” The trend in preaching was to represent redemption as having been obtained for everybody, and all that was required to become a Christian was to accept that fact. Accepting Christ, or making a decision, was equated with being born-again of the Holy Spirit. Somebody said that in those times if you threw a stone from an American railcar you would surely hit a Fundamentalist, and Pink’s evaluation was that: “The religion of vast multitudes consists in little more than a firm confidence that their sins are forgiven and their souls are eternally secure.” Those who had “decided for Christ” were told that they were saved irrespective of their subsequent walk and conduct; by contrast Arthur Pink argued: “The Saviour is the Holy One of God who saves his people ‘from their sins” (Matt. 1:21) and not in their sins: who saves them from the love and dominion of their sins. ‘If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new’ (2 Cor, 5:17). Divine salvation is a supernatural work which produces effects. It is a miracle of grace . . . .”

  Pink’s method in preaching differed from the Fundamentalists, as he explained in a letter to a friend: “In preaching to the unsaved I never did anything more than I do in my articles: presented the truth of God so far as I knew it, and left it to the Holy Spirit to apply and bless it as he saw well. I never held any ‘after meetings’, never asked sinners to signify by any outward sign they had accepted Christ or desired to be prayed for. If any waited behind to speak with me, I told them frankly I would not help them, and urged them to go home and read God’s Word. Nor did Spurgeon use any of those Arminian methods of ‘casting out the net’, ‘penitent forms’, etc., for the simple but sufficient reason that neither Christ not his apostles ever did so! Needless to say I was often criticized: yet God was pleased to honour my faith as the Day to come will show.”

  Arthur Pink’s ‘home’ was with the Puritans of centuries before, and with C. H. Surgeon of the previous century. Then it was from those directions that he became acutely aware of the dangers to the Gospel from the Pre-millenianism and Dispensationalism of American Fundamentalism. Pink had been a student of the Scofield Reference Bible from soon after the first edition was issued in 1909 with several of his early books demonstrated his attachment. Then in 1933 he repudiated those notions; not hesitating to call them demonic. He lost many readers of his “Studies”, although he had constantly refrained from presenting those views in the magazine. Pink was accompanied by Philip Mauro and A. W. Tozer, both of whom had rejected those opinions. O. T. Allis, in his definitive analysis of Dispensationalism, counted Pink and Mauro as the most ardent opponents of that extraordinary exegesis of Scripture. O. T. Allis: “Prophecy & The Church.” (Presbyterian & Reformed. 1945)

Home in Britain. During 1934 the Pinks departed for Britain with some anticipation of a pastoral appointment. While Arthur was home in his native land, it was all-new for Vera with her rich Kentucky drawl. At first they lived in London amidst “kind loyal friends” where he believed “surely there are still left somewhere in these British Isles congregations or groups which would welcome an oral ministry.” A contact with the Brethren proved fruitless, as also was a visit to Free Presbyterians in Glasgow. At the end of that he noted: “We have not opened our mouth in public a single time during 1937.”

  It was then clear that his future ministry would be with the magazine, which reached 1,000 homes at one stage. Sometimes the numbers declined, notably during the 1939-1945 war, and the Editor became concerned. He then learned that some were not simply reading, but regularly used his materials for their own preaching and teaching programs. A decline in readers occurred after the war, followed by a rise. Only 50 new subscriptions during 1949, then in 1951, the year before his death, the increase in circulation was 50% beyond the previous year. In 32 years while he studied assiduously, engaged in a remarkably extensive correspondence, the Editor wrote 2,000 articles averaging four pages each. That provided a great resource of Reformed literature, which contributed to many of his 55 books.

Banner of Truth re-published two volumes of “Studies in the Scriptures” for the years 1946 & 1947.

Interpreting Pink’s Life. Iain Murray’s book provides a vivid account of Arthur Pink’s life, including explorations of his many difficulties, in what is a very convincing interpretation. Many, including Australian Evangelicals, have dismissed the man after hearing no more than some glib remarks: “A recluse who lived apart from other Christians”, or “a Hyper-Calvinist.” Pink appears in his vast correspondence, in over 20,000 letters, always attentive to the spiritual needs of his unseen ‘congregation.’ In theology he was a Calvinist of the same class as Matthew Henry, John Owen, Thomas Manton, Thomas Flavel, Thomas Goodwin, Jonathan Edwards and Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Those names constantly appeared in his “Studies” as he encouraged his readers to attend only to what was best for their souls. Certainly he knew the Hyper-Calvinists (including William Huntington, William Gadsby, also J. C. Philpot and his “Gospel Standard”), as did Spurgeon, recognising their strengths, then clearly warned everybody what should be avoided “as you would a snake.”

  Arthur W. Pink died in their 2 room rented apartment at 29 Lewis Street, Stornoway in July 1952. His instructions for his funeral were based on Acts 8:2 “devout men carried Stephen to his burial.” Mrs. Vera Pink supervised the publication of Studies in the Scriptures until the last issue during the following year. She continued living in Stornoway, “an elegant and gracious lady with a radiant expression and a loving and lively interest in people,” until her death in June 1962.

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