RIP Funeral of Dr Charles Stanley Last video on Twitter
The death of Charles Stanley, a notable televangelist and former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, was announced by In Touch Ministries on Tuesday. Stanley passed away at his home in Atlanta.
There was no mention of a cause of death.
Stanley, who grew up in Dry Fork, Virginia's rural countryside, served as pastor of Atlanta's First Baptist Church for 50 years. After he took the helm in 1971, the congregation flourished, and by 1997, it had outgrown its downtown Atlanta location and relocated to a suburban campus.
Church members "are eternally indebted to him for his unwavering legacy of faithful leadership and spiritual guidance," they wrote on social media.
In 1978, when the Christian Broadcasting Network was still in its infancy, Dr. Charles Stanley was given the helm of "In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley," a Christian teaching program. This prompted the establishment of an independent Christian ministry called In Touch Ministries to disseminate Stanley's teachings via radio and television. More than one hundred languages are represented on solar-powered audio players that contain the Bible, Stanley's sermons, and other resources. More than forty books were authored by Stanley.
Even though Stanley will no longer be the senior pastor at First Baptist Church, he has no plans to retire from preaching and will instead devote his time to In Touch Ministries.
"I'll continue to preach the gospel as long as God allows, and my goal remains the same: to get the truth of the gospel to as many people as possible as quickly as possible in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God," Stanley said in a video message to the church when he was named pastor emeritus.
While Stanley was president of the Southern Baptist Convention for two consecutive years (1985–1986), theological conservatives were fighting to remove more moderate leaders from positions of power in the convention and its seminaries on the grounds that the church needed to be truer to Biblical authority.
The opposition was "infuriated" by Stanley's election, and it "ultimately revealed many of the underlying problems that had existed in the convention for a long time but had either been ignored or denied," the former president wrote in an autobiography published in 2016. Seminary presidents and state convention newspapers among the moderate and liberal political forces of the Southern Baptist Convention were actively working against me.
During his first stint in office, Stanley fought to prevent women from becoming ordained in churches. The legendary evangelist Billy Graham reportedly sent a last-minute telegraph of support to his campaign in 1985, helping him win a second term in office, as reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The debate abated after Stanley's election, and "the moderates moved on from the fight or away from the denomination," Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College in Illinois, told the newspaper.
Stanley was also a passionate photographer, with many of his outdoor and natural scenes being featured in In Touch magazines.
Longtime couple Stanley and Anna divorced in 2000 after separation in the 1990s. First Baptist had a policy that prohibited divorced men from serving as ministers, and Stanley had previously stated that he would quit if his wife left him.
Other evangelical Christians were not happy with the outcome. Andy Stanley, the pastor's son, was among the dissenters and believed the church should be given the opportunity to accept his father's resignation. Instead, it was Andy Stanley who split from the church to establish Northpoint Ministries, an evangelical Christian network of eight congregations in the Atlanta area and beyond. Together with his sister Becky, he outlived Charles Stanley.
Despite their differences, Andy Stanley told WAGA-TV that his father was a great pastor and example to follow.
Not only how to preach or how to build a church," Andy Stanley emphasized. "But how to cross the finish line with integrity, so that you can look back on your life and be proud of what you've accomplished,"
thanks for watching
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting , teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. NON commercial organizations, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
#drcharlesstanley #stanley #funeral
