James Martin Gray (1851-1935)

Steven L. McAvoy

    Reformed Episcopal clergyman, author, editor, educator, Bible teacher, first dean and first president of Moody Bible Institute, Gray (1851-1935) played a key role in the funda­mentalist movement of the 1920s and in the promotion and establishment of dispensa­tional premillennial theology.

   The names of Gray's parents are un­known. It is known that his father died shortly after James was born and that James's eldest brother became the protector and provider for the family, a Christian family (at least nominally) in the Protestant Episcopal church. Confirmed in 1865 at age fourteen by a bishop in that denomination, it was not until he was twenty-two years old and in seminary training for a ministerial career in the Protestant Episcopal Church that Gray was converted to Christ. Transferring his de­nominational ties, Gray apparently completed his education in the Reformed Episcopal Church, by that he was ordained in 1877.

   Gray served two successful pastorates, one year each, first at the Church of the Redemp­tion in Greenpoint, New York, and then at Church of the Cornerstone, located outside New York City at Newburgh-on-the-Hudson. He then served from 1877 to 1894 as rector, First Reformed Episcopal Church in Boston, where he also taught Bible synthesis at the Boston Missionary Training School founded by A. J. Gordon, which later became Gordon College. In 1892, Gray moved to Philadelphia where he taught Bible classes in the newly founded Reformed Episcopal Seminary, re­signing his third pastorate in 1894.

   In 1892 or 1893, Gray became associated with D. L. Moody, through Gordon, who brought Gray to the Northfield Bible Con­ferences in Northfield, Massachusetts. Gray was also invited to lecture at Moody's Bible Institute for Home and Foreign Missions of the Chicago Evangelistic Society (later Moody Bible Institute). Invitations increased and in 1904 Gray was selected as the first dean of Moody Bible Institute. His title was changed to the president in 1925, the posi­tion that he held until his death in 1935. He was listed in Who's Who in America from (at least) 1916 to 1935.

    During the 1920s he played a key role in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. Devout student of the Bible and staunch de­fender of verbal inspiration, he was one of the contributors to The Fundamentals (1910­15). As teacher and administrator, Gray was chiefly responsible for the sound doctrinal and conservative solidarity in the foundation that set the future course of Moody Bible In­stitute. Involved in every aspect of the Institute, Gray was the prime mover in the improvement of the music program (he authored a number of hymns), and in the es­tablishment of the Institute's first radio station. He also edited the Institute's periodical (now Moody Monthly) from 1907 until 1935. He was also instrumental in the orga­nization of the Evangelical Teacher Training Association in 1931. One of the seven editors of the Scofield Reference Bible, Gray was a popular and much sought after Bible teacher. He introduced and popularized syn­thetic Bible study, or "Bible synthesis," a means of studying the Bible as an organic whole. G

   ray's contributions to Moody Bible In­stitute, to the Bible institute movement in general, to the growth of the fundamentalist movement, and to the popularization and propagation of dispensational premillennial theology is incalculable. His theological foci were bibliology, Christology, soteriology, pneumatology, and eschatology and were due in part to the demands of the era and in part to his personal interest. Dr. Gray's writings were essentially the product of his evange­listic and teaching ministries and of his defense of fundamentalism against the threat of modernism. At the forefront of the con­troversy was the doctrine of the Bible (revelation, inspiration, inerrancy, etc.). But the ramifications led, of course, to questions concerning the person and work of Christ, human sinfulness (vs. inherent goodness), the nature of salvation, and the person and work of the Holy Spirit, although Gray's treatment of the Holy Spirit was more pastoral and sprang more from personal interest than po­lemical concern.

    Gray's interest in eschatology is traceable to the first American Prophetic Conference held in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, New York City, 1878. The consensus was decidedly premillennial. He was convinced of the truth of it. Through his own study of the Bible, along with inter­course with Moody, Gordon, F. L. Chapell and many other premillennialists at Northfield, including C. I. Scofield, Gray adopted a premillennial, dispensational, pretribulational interpretation of Scripture.

   Gray held that the covenant promises given to Abraham and David concerning ev­erlasting possession of the land would shape future history and one day be fulfilled. Be­cause of the nation's disobedience, Israel was removed from the place of blessing and sub­jected to Gentile domination. The Times of the Gentiles Gray took to be the empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome as the final form of Gentile world power. Gray understood Daniel's Seventieth Week to begin with a Persian decree to build the walls of Jerusalem and to end at the com­mencement of the Millennium, when God's promises to Abraham and David would be literally fulfilled. He saw a gap between the end of the sixty-ninth week ("cutting off' of Christ in A.D. 32) and the beginning of the Seventieth Week. During the interim, Christ would build His church. Gray drew a sharp contrast between Israel and the church. Christ's second coming was in two stages. At the end of the church age, Christ would return and catch up the church into the air (pretribulational Rapture), take the church to heaven where the wedding of the bride and Bridegroom is consummated. Daniel's Sev­entieth Week would follow the rapture of the church and be brought to a conclusion by Christ's return to earth with the church to es­tablish the millennial kingdom.