R.A. Torrey, Great Defender of the Faith

Here's a picture of me at the desk in Torrey's home study.

After his conversion to Christ and during his days at Yale Divinity School (1868-71) and after a year of graduate study in Germany, Torrey did not believe all the Bible was true. He held to the conclusions of the "higher critics." There were many unbiblical views he held as well. However, he began to study and read those who were Bible-believing scholars. He became convinced that the Bible was completely God's Word, infallible and inerrant. He even helped edit a scholarly work answers the so-called "higher ciritics." When he entered his powerful evangelistic career, he would often show in a popular way, why the reasons for believing the fundamental truths of the Bible. Dr. Allen MacRay was a great Biblical scholar and stalwart defender of the faith, He testified that when he graduated from Princeton, he faced many questions about the Bible he could not answer. He enrolled for a year at the Bible Institue of Los Angeles. Torrey answered thoroughly and understandably every objection MacRay had heard at Princeton. Peter tells us to "Sanctify Jesus as Lord in our hearts, and be ready to give a reason for the hope that lies within in us." I Peter 3:15. EVERY ARGUMENT AGAINST CHRISTIANITY HAS BEEN THOROUGHLY ANSWERED. If some one questions you about something you don't know, be honest. Then you and your questioner go to a source (person or book) that gives the answer. Later in life (1910). Torrey edited the last two of ten paper back books defending the Christian faith. They were given free to every clergyman in the United States. They contained articles written by Scholars in language everyone could understand. The series was called the "Fundamentals of Christianity." That's where the term "fundamentalist" came from. The press has used the term to speak of ignorant, reactionary and extremist people. (Muslim Fundamentalists). It actually came out of popular books that set forth the case for Christiantiy in reasonable, scholarly terms.