Aug. 14, 2022, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:
Billy Sunday knocked it out of the park as an evangelist
By Mike Haynes
One of my most embarrassing moments as a Texas Tech University student – probably even more so than when the campus cops caught me and a group of fellow students from my hometown playing touch football on the new AstroTurf of Jones Stadium – was in my first freshman history class.
I was
impressed by the professor, a relatively young man who exuded passion as he
told fascinating anecdotes about people in U.S. history instead of just going
through a timeline of battles, laws and elections. I wish I could remember his
name.
Billy Sunday, Major Leaguer
We had to write a paper about a well-known American, then give a class presentation on it. Always on the lookout to promote Christianity, I chose the evangelist Billy Sunday as my topic.
I suppose speaking to a class makes most college freshmen nervous, and that certainly was true of me. And it got embarrassing when I told the class that Billy Sunday’s family had immigrated from Germany and that their name had been changed from Sonntag to Sunday. I wish I hadn’t added, “I have no idea why they changed it to Sunday.”
Another student quickly spoke up: “Sonntag is German for Sunday.”
I had taken some Spanish in high school and was enrolled in a college French class, so I might not have looked so dumb if the name origin had been “Domingo” or “Dimanche,” but I knew nothing about German.
I’m sure now that my paper and presentation were pretty rudimentary, but I made an “A” in the course, so it wasn’t a disaster. And I learned that Billy Sunday was quite a remarkable character.
Born in poverty near Ames, Iowa, in 1862, Sunday was fast and agile, and he became an outstanding baseball player. The Chicago White Stockings signed him in 1883, and he played for the Pittsburgh Alleghenys and the Philadelphia Phillies. His career batting average was only .248, but he was known for his speedy base-running. While at Pittsburgh, a reporter wrote that “the whole town is wild over Sunday.”
While in Chicago, Sunday heard street preachers who inspired him to attend church. He started speaking at churches and YMCAs, and according to historian Lyle Dorsett, he turned down a $3,500 a year baseball contract to work for the Chicago YMCA for $83 a month. From then on, Sunday was a preacher first.
According to
christianitytoday.com., a newspaper story said, “Center fielder Billy
Sunday made a three-base hit at Farwell Hall last night. There is no other way
to express the success of his first appearance as an evangelist in Chicago.”
Billy Sunday, evangelist
Sunday was flamboyant as he spoke in tents and wooden tabernacles, striking dramatic poses and preaching forcefully with sometimes crude language. Reflecting William Tyndale’s 16th century desire that even English plowboys should know the Bible, Sunday said, “I want to preach the gospel so plainly that men can come from the factories and not have to bring a dictionary.”
One of Sunday’s many one-liners, used by many preachers since, was, “Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.”
He fit the category of “evangelical,” ending each revival service with an impassioned plea for those present to “walk the sawdust trail” to the front of the venue to accept the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. He opposed playing cards, attending movies, women dressing immodestly and especially drinking alcohol.
Sunday has been called a strong influence on getting Prohibition passed in the United States in 1920. “To know what the devil will do, find out what the saloon is doing,” he said.
But he wasn’t in lockstep with all conservative Christians of the time. Sunday backed women’s suffrage and ending child labor. He invited all races to his services, even in the South, supported Jews and considered Roman Catholics his fellow Christians. According to christianitytoday.com, he rejected the theory of evolution but didn’t go so far as endorsing “Genesis literalists.”
Billy Sunday was to the first half of the 20th century what Billy Graham was to the second half. He preached to millions and led an estimated 300,000 people to belief in Christ. Other than my ignorance about his name, I don’t recall what I told my history class many years ago. But I’m sure I read aloud some of his quotes like these:
• “I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I have a foot. I’ll fight it as long as I have a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I have a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it ’til I go home to glory and it goes home to perdition.”
• “Nowadays we think we are too smart to believe in the virgin birth of Jesus and too well educated to believe in the resurrection. That's why people are going to the devil in multitudes.”
