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The Pirate Preacher and Amen Charlie
Carl McIntire grew up in Durant, Oklahoma. He was born the year before Oklahoma was even a state. His mother had separated from his Presbyterian preacher father and raised him in this remote town in the new state. Carl grew up meager, and went to school at Southeastern Oklahoma State College. He then attended the Ivy League seminary his father had attended at Princeton University. While in school at Princeton the student became acquainted with Dr. J. Gersham Machen. Machen was an old south segregationist who would be credited with starting the modern fundamentalist movement in Protestant churches. Machen gave Ivy League scholarly credentials to a movement that is still strong in the nation.
With the influence and help of Machen, McIntire worked as pastor of a Presbyterian congregation and led them to split from the national organization of Presbyterians. The splinter group started the Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination. Later on Carl left this splinter group to start the Bible Along the way Carl stumbled upon a new medium. He found radio, or it found him. One of the most successful moves he made was to mortgage a seminary he started to buy radio time. The station he purchased was WXUR. This radio ministry launched him into national prominence.3 While on the airwaves, McIntire received a national following. He received over 4,000 letters a day from listeners. He was so popular that national politicians shared platforms with him. He was a close acquaintance with Senator Strom Thurmond, an old Dixicrat, who was a leader in the anti-integration movement.4 While speaking on radio, from the pulpit, or publishing his newspaper, Carl focused on several right wing viewpoints. He fought against the United Nations, Civil Rights, and the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. He denounced labor unions, dancing and flouride in the water. Carl struggled against the World Council of Churches and founded another version of the organization. He kept files on preachers. He considered Billy Graham's teaching, "a ministry of disobedience."5 Area and regional churches had had enough of the preacher and his antics. He was ousted from the Presbyterian denominaton for being divisive. He later bragged about this badge of honor. Churches got organized to drive him off the radio stating he was anti-Semitic, racist and an anti-Catholic bigot.6 Later on Bob Jones University gave him an honorary doctorate and he started two colleges that lost accreditation.7 Carl helped jump start Billy Hargis. The two teamed up to travel the south telling the audiences that integration was a Communist plot. Some suggest it was carl's launching of Hargis that made him a national figure. McIntire endorsed the John Birch Society like Hargis. He used his influence and apparatus to fight the nomination of John Kennedy for President. Carl, who was no fan of Catholics, was afraid the Vatican would run the U. S. through Kennedy.8 In the seventies, Carl enjoyed having his picture taken with race-baiter, Lester Maddox of Georgia. He also worked with Southern Baptist minister, Edgar Bundy, in the network to spy on people they suspected of being Communists.9 Current biography claims Carl often held pep rallies for the Viet Nam war. The Philadelphia Council of Churches accused him of being anti-negro.10 What propelled the Calvinist into the national spotlight was an episode that began with a battle with the FCC. The federal agency was alerted to the fact that the right wing program was entirely slanted. No opposing view was expressed on the programming. Churches, ministers and journalists began to complain. Carl's friend, Hargis, would face similar charges from the agency. To deal with the conflict Carl purchased an older ship and set it up to broadcast his radio programs. The publicity from such an effort made headlines in several major newspapers. McIntire claimed he was broadcasting to America much like Radio Free Europe programs went behind the Iron Curtain. The accusation was that the federal government would not allow freedom of speech and Carl had to become a type-of-captain of a pirate ship off the shoreline. The ship almost caught fire on the maiden voyage and transmitted for only sixteen hours. Some suggested the ship ought to carry the skull and crossbones flag. The national attention helped Carl.11 If one counted the number of schisms and conflicts that sprang from the churches and denominations McIntire founded, you can see the kind of conflict and division that followed his ministry. This type of fundamentalism appears to flourish on conflict and when it has no one close to fight with it turns on itself. Carl's story is a parallel many have sought to warn Southern Baptists about. Carl once assured his friend, Billy Hargis, that Southern Baptists were responsible for the recent control of congress by the Republican Party. Carl also stated in the same speech that Hargis was the original founder of the new religious right. In Billy Graham's biography he recalls reading a critical article McIntire wrote about him. Graham took the crticism seriously and was deeply hurt by the comments. He then decided to move on in his ministry and distance himself from this critic much like he did with Bob Jones.12 Though Graham moved on, others haven taken Carl much more seriously. I recently read one of Carl's latest articles he wrote before his death. It was a document in which Carl believed that the U. N. was setting up the world to have a one world religion in which Christianity would be abolished.13 A topic that is often voiced through other end of times would be prophets like John Hagee, Pat Robertson, Jack Van Impe and Hal Lindsey. One of McIntire's former church members said of the pastor, "You either agree with the devil or McIntire." There was no room aboard the ship for the slightest difference on viewpoints by most accounts. This was one of the fruits of the movement that led to so many divisions. One popular figure in the story is the famed radio companion of Carl known as "Amen Charlie". Sitting next to McIntire on his radio broadcasts was this man who claimed to have an earned doctorate. At given moments and at strategic times after a comment by Carl, the co-host would echo a resounding "amen" or awe at such a profound statement. Carl's critics found great humor in such a character. Everyone needs a few "Amen Charlies." However, to set up a system with no dissent and total control does not model the idea of New Testament freedom. Some of modern religious systems in the name of the Christian faith operate like this one. Men surround themselves with a few "Amen Charlies" and take control of churches and denominations. Eventually these models end up in a sad way much like Carl McIntire's version. Endnotes:
1. Princeton Theological Seminary website.
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