Albert Benjamin Simpson

1843–1919

Introduction

Biography

Albert was son of James Simp­son, Jr., and Ja­net Clark, and fa­ther of Mar­ga­ret Simp­son.

His fa­mi­ly’s strict Cal­vin­is­tic Scot­tish Pres­by­ter­ian and Pu­ri­tan back­ground formed Al­bert’s view of his spir­it­ual stand­ing. It sent him search­ing un­til he ap­par­ent­ly had to seek his doc­tor’s ad­vice as a youth.

Albert was al­so un­doub­ted­ly ex­posed to sol­id Chris­tian clas­sics, as were ma­ny in the spir­it­ual tra­di­tions of the time. It is known that he read Mar­shall’s Gos­pel Mys­te­ry of Sal­va­tion (1692), which brought the 15-year­old youth to a bal­anced un­der­stand­ing of sal­va­tion and Chris­tian ho­li­ness.

One in­flu­ence on Simp­son’s mis­sion­ary fer­vor may have been Rev. John Ged­die. In 1847, Ged­die went to the New He­bri­des [now Va­nu­atu] in the South Pa­ci­fic as a mis­sion­ary; re­port­ed­ly a whole is­land turned to Christ un­der his min­is­try. The Ged­die me­mor­ial on Prince Ed­ward Is­land says, When he ar­rived in 1848, there were no Chris­tians; when he left in 1872, there were no hea­then.

After fin­ish­ing high school, Al­bert taught for a while to earn mo­ney to en­ter Knox Col­lege at the Uni­ver­si­ty of To­ron­to. At age 21, he gra­du­at­ed and re­ceived calls to two church­es.

One was a small rur­al con­gre­ga­tion, the oth­er the large Knox Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Ham­il­ton, On­tar­io. He wres­tled be­tween these calls, fin­al­ly choos­ing Knox Pres­by­ter­ian so God could use him as wid­ely as pos­si­ble.

After eight years of high­ly suc­cess­ful min­is­try and the ad­di­tion of 750 new church mem­bers, it was said He was se­cond to none in elo­quence and abi­li­ty and suc­cess in his min­is­try (A. E. Thomp­son, A. B. Simp­son, His Life and Work, Chris­tian Pub­li­ca­tions).

In De­cember 1873, Simp­son was called to the pul­pit of the larg­est Pres­by­ter­ian church in Lou­is­ville, Ken­tuc­ky, the Chest­nut Street Pres­by­ter­ian Church. There he joined ci­ty wide evan­gel­is­tic en­dea­vors which opened his eyes to a more ac­tive evan­gel­is­tic min­is­try of his own.

A let­ter writ­ten by Simp­son’s fa­ther in 1877 to a ne­phew speaks of his two sons, How­ard and Al­bert:

In re­sponse to your re­quest I will give you a brief ac­count of our fa­mi­ly. My two old­est sons as you are aware are Min­is­ters of the Gos­pel. How­ard is in the City of Ma­di­son, In­di­ana and Al­bert is in Lou­is­ville, Ken­tuc­ky. Both are well pro­vid­ed for with re­gard to the things of this world…I trust they are both la­bor­ing faith­ful­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly. Al­bert in­deed is kill­ing him­self with hard la­bor hav­ing es­tab­lished mis­sion sta­tions through the whole Ci­ty which has a po­pu­la­tion of 150,000 and 30,000 of whom go to no place of wor­ship. His own Con­gre­ga­tion has dou­bled since he went to it three years ago.

After five years and reach­ing a pla­teau of min­is­try in Lou­is­ville, Al­bert was called to New York Ci­ty to pas­tor the Thir­teenth Street Pres­by­ter­ian Church. There he was drawn to the mass­es of im­mi­grant po­pu­la­tion; in­deed, he found a mis­sion field at his door.

After lead­ing 100 or so Ita­li­an im­mi­grants to Christ, his con­gre­ga­tion sug­gest­ed that they might find an­oth­er church to at­tend. Simp­son de­cid­ed then that God was call­ing him to a dif­fer­ent work and he left to be­gin his min­is­try to the mass­es in New York.

God’s call on Simp­son’s life re­sult­ed in a two­fold vi­sion. First, the mes­sage of the full­ness of Christ and its cen­tral­ity of Christ in doc­trine was his Bib­li­cal mes­sage. This be­came what he called the Four­fold Gos­pel: Jesus Christ our Sav­ior, Sanc­ti­fied, Heal­er, and Com­ing King.

Simpson at­trib­ut­ed the term, Four­fold Gos­pel, to a sug­gest­ion of the Ho­ly Spir­it at the op­en­ing of the 1890 con­ven­tion at the New York Gos­pel Ta­ber­na­cle. This for­mu­la­tion has been used by the As­sem­blies of God as well as the Four Square church­es.

Second, a vi­sion of a lost and per­ish­ing world com­pelled Simp­son to send his first mis­sion­ary evan­gel­is­tic teams to the Con­go. Simp­son’s be­lief and stra­te­gy were that Spir­it filled peo­ple liv­ing a Christ like life be­come ac­tive ser­vants.

The out­come of these twin vi­sions was the de­vel­op­ment his Christ cen­tered mes­sage and the ex­ten­sion of his lo­cal church’s min­is­try in­to what has be­come to­day the Chris­tian and Mis­sion­ary Al­li­ance (CAMA).

For Simp­son, the min­is­try was all en­com­pass­ing. He wrote once about how he was be­ing di­vine­ly led in de­vel­op­ment of his lo­cal church min­is­try:

He is show­ing us the plan for a Chris­tian church that is much more than an as­so­ci­ation of con­gen­ial friends to list­en once a week to an in­tel­lec­tu­al dis­course and mu­sic­al en­ter­tain­ment and car­ry on by proxy a me­cha­nism of Chris­tian work; but ra­ther a church that can be at once the mo­ther and home of ev­ery form of help and bles­sing which Je­sus came to give to lost and suf­fer­ing men, the birth­place and the home of souls, the fount­ain of heal­ing and cleans­ing, the shel­tering home for the or­phan and dis­tressed, the school for the cul­ture and train­ing of God’s child­ren, the ar­mo­ry where they are equipped for the bat­tle of the Lord and the ar­my which fights those bat­tles in His name. Such a cen­ter of po­pu­la­tion in this sad and sin­ful world!

A Larg­er Chris­tian Life, Al­bert Simp­son

On an­oth­er oc­ca­sion, in a quite si­mi­lar tone, Simp­son wrote:

We should aim to bring all the work of God with­in the sphere of the church of Christ. There is room not on­ly for the wor­ship of God, the teach­ing of sac­red truth and the evan­gel­iz­ation of the lost, but al­so for ev­ery phase of prac­ti­cal phi­lan­thro­py and use­ful­ness.

There may be, in per­fect keep­ing with the sim­ple or­der and dig­ni­ty of the church of God, the most ag­gres­sive work for the mas­ses and the wid­est wel­come for ev­ery class of sin­ful men; the min­is­try of heal­ing for the sick and suf­fer­ing ad­min­is­tered in the name of Je­sus; the most com­plete pro­vi­sion for char­it­able re­lief; in­dus­tri­al train­ing and so­cial ele­va­tion for the de­grad­ed class­es; work­shops for the un­emp­loyed; homes for the or­phaned; shel­ter for the home­less; mis­sions for the hea­then; and ev­ery agen­cy need­ed to make the church of God the light of the world and mo­ther of the suf­fer­ing and lost.

And there is no work that will be more glo­ri­fy­ing to God than a church that will em­brace just such fea­tures and com­plete­ness. May the Lord help us yet to real­ize the vi­sion, and pre­sent at His own bless­ed com­ing His own fair bride and her mul­ti­tudes of child­ren.

But as so­cial­ly mind­ed as these state­ments sound, Simp­son nur­tured a deep pas­sion for the ev­an­gel­iza­tion of earth in his ear­ly fol­low­ers. He said:

Living men; so that ev­ery­one may have the op­por­tu­ni­ty of sal­va­tion, and the Bride of Christ may be ga­thered in from all na­tions, tribes and tongues, the full­ness of the Gen­tiles brought in, and the way ful­ly pre­pared for the Lord’s re­turn.

In his pow­er­ful hymn, The Mis­sion­ary Cry, he wrote:

The Master’s coming draw­eth near.
The Son of Man will soon ap­pear,
His Kingdom is at hand.
But ere that glorious day can be,
The Gospel of the Kingdom, we
Must preach in every land.

In bring­ing about the birth of the CAMA, Simp­son was not seek­ing a de­nom­in­ation, but a tool for world ev­an­gel­iz­ation. He saw his mis­sion’s or­ga­ni­za­tion as the Lord’s way of hast­en­ing His own speedy re­turn.

Hence his cry to equal­ly, fair­ly and speed­ily take the Gos­pel to all the peo­ples of the earth. Then the end would come and the King would re­ceive his own. The oft­en re­port­ed an­ec­dote in­volv­ing a re­por­ter from the New York Jour­nal clear­ly shows his an­ti­ci­pa­tion of the Se­cond Com­ing and how to hast­en it.

The re­por­ter asked Dr. Simp­son, Do you know when the Lord is com­ing?

Yes, he re­plied, and I will tell you if you prom­ise to print just what I say, ref­er­enc­es and all.

The re­por­ter’s poised note­book gave the rea­dy pro­mise.

Then put this down: This gos­pel of the king­dom shall be preached in all the world for a wi­tness un­to the na­tions and then shall the end come. Matthew 24:14. Have you writ­ten the ref­er­ence?

Yes, what more?

Nothing more.

The re­por­ter low­ered his pen­cil and said, Do you mean to say that you be­lieve that when the Gos­pel is preached to all the na­tions Je­sus will re­turn?

Just that.

I think I be­gin to see the day­light, an­swered the re­port­er. I see the mo­ti­va­tion and the mo­tive pow­er in this move­ment.

Then, Simp­son said, you see more than some of the doc­tors of di­vi­ni­ty.

This spirit of seek­ing the lost pro­pelled the Al­li­ance in­to lead­er­ship in world mis­sions. The be­lief that ev­an­ge­li­za­tion could hast­en the Se­cond Com­ing fired a pas­sion. In its ear­li­est days this pas­sion con­sumed its lead­er­ship at na­tion­al and lo­cal church le­vels.

While Simp­son was alive, he main­tained a close hand on the pur­pos­es and act­ions of the move­ment, his move­ment. In the years since his death in 1919, the CAMA moved from a move­ment formed in the min­is­try of a sin­gle in­di­vi­du­al to a mis­sion­ary de­nom­in­ation.

Many reg­ret the pass­ing of a sin­gle vi­sion move­ment to a mul­ti­vi­sioned or­gan­ized church bo­dy. But the roots of ma­ny de­no­mi­na­tion­al like ac­ti­vi­ties are found in Simp­son’s own mul­ti­vi­sioned ap­proach to his min­is­try in New York Ci­ty.

Healing homes with their fo­cus on spir­it­ual re­new­al and pray­er for the sick re­si­dents may be viewed as per­haps a short term ver­sion of our mo­dern nurs­ing homes and re­tire­ment cen­ters.

His ex­pand­ed vi­sion for an edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem from high school through a uni­ver­si­ty was cer­tain­ly the pre­cur­sor of the five col­leges and two sem­in­ar­ies in the US and Ca­na­di­an church­es of the CAMA.

The near­ly 25% of US mem­ber­ship in eth­nic con­gre­ga­tions, speak­ing as ma­ny as 19 lang­uag­es on a Sun­day morn­ing would make his heart leap with joy. Cer­tain­ly the de­vel­op­ment agen­cy, CAMA Ser­vic­es, serv­ing in sev­er­al coun­tries, doubt­less match­es the heart­beat of Simp­son’s vi­sion of a lo­cal church min­is­try.

A mi­li­ta­ry chap­lain­cy ef­fort well be­yond the US Armed Ser­vic­es’ ex­pec­ta­tion for a small de­nom­in­ation has been marked with re­mark­able leader­ship by CAMA chap­lains. A church loan pro­gram that is near­ing $100 mil­lion in­vest­ed by CAMA peo­ple for the de­vel­op­ment of new and strong­er Al­li­ance church­es in the US.

A tri­en­ni­al youth con­vo­ca­tion with more than 6,000 youth that fo­cus­es on ev­an­gel­ism and deep­er life of youth pe­ople chal­lenges them with calls to Chris­tian min­is­tries and builds a pool of re­cruits for church min­is­tries. As he said, There is room not on­ly for the wor­ship of God, the teach­ing of sac­red truth and the evan­gel­iz­ation of the lost, but al­so for ev­ery phase of prac­ti­cal phil­an­thro­py and use­ful­ness.

Photo & bio­gra­phy cour­te­sy of Dr. Bill W. Lanpher, an Al­li­ance pas­tor for 15 years, for 16 years As­sist­ant Vice Pre­si­dent for Church Min­is­tries, and 10 years Pre­si­dent of Crown Col­lege, Min­ne­sota. Af­ter 7 years in lead­er­ship and Pre­si­dent of Tri­ni­ty Col­lege of Flo­ri­da, he re­tired a second time to Shell Point Re­tire­ment Com­mu­ni­ty (C&MA) in Ft. My­ers, Flo­ri­da. He lives hap­pi­ly with his wife Jan­ice. One son, James, con­tin­ues in edu­ca­tion­al lead­er­ship as Pro­vost of Co­lum­bia In­te­rn­ation­al Uni­ver­si­ty. A se­cond son, Da­vid, works in real es­tate in Far­go, North Da­ko­ta. Per­mis­sion to re­pro­duce this bi­og­ra­phy with cre­dit is grant­ed. Email: bwlanpher@yahoo.com.