View source for Carl McIntire

==Expanding ministry==

===''Christian Beacon''===
[[File:Christian Beacon.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Logo of the ''Christian Beacon.'']]
In February 1936, during the series of ecclesiastical trials, McIntire launched a weekly newspaper, The ''Christian Beacon'' to give greater voice to his message. The Collingswood church had already printed many of his sermons, and its church services had been broadcast over the radio in the Philadelphia region. Over the next four decades, McIntire published twelve books, and hundreds of pamphlets, booklets, sermons, speeches, and documentary portfolios.<ref>Ethel Rink served as the editor of virtually all his major publications, and Ruth Trato assisted with the documentary supplements. After the death of Rink, McIntire's published prose noticeably deteriorated.</ref> As Joel Carpenter has written, McIntire was "a gifted publicist," and his ''Christian Beacon'' was a "widely read organ of separatist opinion in which McIntire practiced his talent for sensational and aggressive religious journalism."<ref>Joel A. Carpenter, ''Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 205.</ref>

===''Twentieth-Century Reformation Hour''===
In March 1955, McIntire initiated a daily thirty-minute radio program, ''The Twentieth Century Reformation Hour'', which featured McIntire's commentary on religious and political affairs.<ref>Ethel Rink, ''40 Years'', 24.</ref> The radio program generally began with a homily from the Bible, followed by a monologue by McIntire on a wide range of subjects, including apostasy in mainline churches, liberalism in government, opposition to coexistence with communism, and cultural issues of the moment, including gambling, sex education, [[socialized medicine]], and [[Water fluoridation controversy|fluoridation of drinking water]]. An associate pastor of the Collingswood church, Charles Richter, known to listeners as "Amen Charlie," regularly "amened" his support of McIntire's statements.<ref>"Amen Charlie was Carl McIntire's radio sidekick when I frequently tuned in to the program during the 1960s and '70s. Charlie was a man of very few words. His main role was to provide a brief change of pace in the midst of his boss's monologues. McIntire would go on for a few minutes on favorite topic, and then he would pause and ask, 'Isn't that right, Charlie?' And Amen Charlie would reply, 'Amen. You're right, Dr. McIntire!'" Richard J. Mouw, "You're Right, Dr. McIntire," [http://www.ctlibrary.com/8573 ''Christianity Today'', May 17, 2002].</ref> During the 1960s, the program may have been heard on as many as 600 radio stations—although McIntire's inaccuracy with numbers became legendary.<ref>D.A. Waite, ''Carl McIntire's $200,000 Tax Debt in Cape May, Etc.'', (Collingswood, N.J.: The Bible for Today, 1974). Waite was a disaffected former employee who counted 414 stations in April 1965. By the early 1970s, Waite said that McIntire was broadcasting on "well under 100 stations." (8).</ref> In 1965, McIntire effectively purchased radio station, [[WRNB|WXUR]], [[Media, Pennsylvania]], although it was formally owned by Faith Theological Seminary.<ref>Ethel Rink, ''40 Years'', 39.</ref>

===Bible conference centers===
McIntire's outreach included an interest in promoting summer Bible conferences, a common method of evangelization and Bible teaching among American Protestants during the early twentieth century.<ref>David O. Beale, In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850 (Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University Press, 1986), 91-95.</ref> In 1941, McIntire took a leading role in acquiring and operating [[Harvey Cedars Bible Conference]] on the Jersey shore at [[Harvey Cedars, New Jersey]] (1941–56).<ref>[Ethel Rink], ''40 Years...Carl McIntire and the Bible Presbyterian Church of Collingswood, 1933-1973'' (Collingswood: Christian Beacon Press, 1973), 18; [http://www.hcbible.org/ Harvey Cedars Bible Conference]</ref> After the Bible Presbyterian denomination underwent its first split in the latter year, McIntire's organization purchased the historic [http://www.tks.org/christian_admiral_memories.htm Admiral Hotel] in [[Cape May, New Jersey]] in 1962, and founded the Christian Admiral Bible Conference and Freedom Center. McIntire added a number of distressed properties to his holdings, becoming an unwitting preservationist as he prevented outmoded structures—the most notable being the nineteenth-century Windsor and [[Congress Hall (Cape May hotel)|Congress Hall]] hotels—from being destroyed to make room for motels.<ref>[http://www.washingtontimes.com/travel/20070601-082807-6044r.htm ''Washington Times'', June 1, 2007]; Gladys Titzck Rhoads and Nancy Titzck Anderson, ''McIntire: Defender of Faith and Freedom'' (Xulon Press, 2011), 308.</ref> The conference itself contributed to the revival of Cape May as a summer resort. In 1971, McIntire also developed a Bible conference in [[Cape Canaveral, Florida]].<ref>McIntire's non-profit corporation, Christian Beacon Press, Inc., owned the newspaper, the publishing house, the radio ministry, the Bible conferences, and other properties connected with the ministry, and McIntire's income was derived solely from his church salary. In 1939, McIntire and his wife purchased their own home facing Knight's Park in Collingswood, where McIntire lived until his death in 2002.</ref>

===Church councils===
[[File:Cape May Hotel.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Christian Admiral hotel, home to many Bible conferences, as well as ACCC and ICCC congresses.]]
During the 1940s, McIntire's influence expanded throughout the United States and overseas. In 1941, he helped create the [[American Council of Christian Churches]] (ACCC) as a conservative alternative to the liberal [[National Council of Churches|Federal (later, National) Council of Churches]] (NCC). In 1948, he likewise helped to found the [[International Council of Christian Churches]] (ICCC) to challenge the [[World Council of Churches]] (WCC). McIntire was elected first President of the ICCC and was reelected at each World Congress until he died. He and his wife, Fairy, traveled around the world scores of times both to encourage evangelical Christians abroad and to demonstrate his opposition to the World Council of Churches. (During McIntire's long presidency, the headquarters of the ICCC were located in Amsterdam, and J. C. Maris served as General Secretary.)<ref>See ''The McIntire Memorial: Carl McIntire, 1906-2002'', edited by K. C. Quek ([Singapore]: ICCC, 2005); see also ''Silver Jubilee 1948-1973: Celebrating the Silver Anniversary of the International Council of Christian Churches'' (ICCC, 1973). The ICCC published books collecting the sermons and addresses delivered on the themes of the plenary congresses. Titles indicated the emphases of each congress, including ''The Christ of the Scriptures'' (ICCC, 1958), and ''Jesus Christ the Same Yesterday, and Today, and For Ever'' (ICCC, 1962). The ICCC office has since moved to Singapore.</ref>

During the late 1960s, McIntire's relationship with the ACCC leadership became strained, and he secretly transferred an ACCC relief agency (along with $62,000) to the ICCC, which remained firmly under his control. McIntire "was perennially late to ACCC meetings, and then he would demand that any decisions made in advance of his arrival be undone." When ACCC leaders refused to accommodate him, he attacked them in the ''Christian Beacon'', claiming that there was a "Baptist plot against him." After being outmaneuvered, McIntire attempted a parliamentary takeover in October 1970, which eventually led to a court order against him in 1971, and a final severing of his relationship with the ACCC.<ref>Hendershot, ''What's Fair on the Air?'', 115-18; Rhoads and Anderson, 397-403.</ref>

===Educational institutions===
McIntire promoted several educational ministries. The Sunday School and the Summer Bible School of the Collingswood church were large and active. (The Summer Bible School of the Collingswood church—McIntire disliked the term "Vacation Bible School"—ran for four weeks rather than the typical one week of most churches during the period.) McIntire also gained control of the National Bible Institute in New York City and transformed the school into a liberal arts college, [[Shelton College]], which moved to the "Skylands" estate in [[Ringwood, New Jersey]], in 1953. In 1964, the college moved to Cape May, later to Cape Canaveral, Florida, and then back to Cape May before closing in the 1980s after the New Jersey Supreme Court in ''[[New Jersey Board of Higher Education v. Shelton College]]'' prohibited Shelton from granting academic degrees without a state license.<ref>See Russell Kirk, "Shelton College and State Licensing of Religious Schools: An Educator's View of the Interface Between the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses," ''Law & Contemporary Problems'', 44:2 (Spring 1981), 169-184. "Skylands" became the New Jersey Botanical Gardens in 1984 [http://www.njbg.org/ New Jersey Botanical Gardens website].</ref> [[Faith Theological Seminary]], organized in 1937 as an independent school associated with the Bible Presbyterian denomination, later occupied [[Lynnewood Hall]], the Gilded Age estate of P.A.B. Widener in [[Elkins Park, Pennsylvania]].<ref>On Lynnewood Hall see [http://www.preservationalliance.com/news_lynnewood.php Preservation Alliance News] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070519115406/http://www.preservationalliance.com/news_lynnewood.php |date=May 19, 2007 }}. The seminary later moved to much more plebeian quarters in Baltimore, Maryland.[http://www.faiththeological.org/ Faith Theological Seminary website].</ref> McIntire and west coast supporters of the Bible Presbyterian Church founded [[Highland College]] in Pasadena, California, a small Christian liberal arts college, and remained associated with the college until 1956.