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Mordecai Fowler Ham, Jr. | |
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Born |
Allen County, Kentucky United States |
April 2, 1877
Died | November 1, 1961 Louisville, Jefferson County Kentucky |
(aged 84)
Alma mater | Ogden College |
Occupation | Evangelist |
Spouse(s) | (1) Bessie Simmons Ham (married 1900–1905, her death) (2) Annie Laurie Smith Ham (married 1907–1961, his death) |
Children | Martha Elizabeth, Dorothy, and Annie Laurie |
Mordecai Fowler Ham, Jr. (April 2, 1877 – November 1, 1961), was an American Independent Baptist evangelist and temperance movement leader. He entered the ministry in 1901 and in 1936 began a radio broadcast reaching into seven southern states. Early in his ministry, he was ordained at Burton Memorial Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
The son of Tobias Ham and the former Ollie McElroy, Ham was born on a farm in Allen County near Scottsville in southern Kentucky, north of the Tennessee state line. Descended from eight generations of Baptist preachers, his namesake grandfather was Mordecai F. Ham, Sr. He once stated that "From the time I was eight years old, I never thought of myself as anything but a Christian. At nine, I had definite convictions that the Lord wanted me to preach...." Ham studied at Ogden College in Bowling Green and relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where he engaged in business from 1896 to 1900. There, he married the former Bessie Simmons in July 1900. In December 1900, he closed the business to devote full-time to the ministry.
One target of Ham's sermons was alcohol abuse, particularly before the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. He believed that problems involving liquor could best be resolved by conversion to Christianity and the placement of new believers in churches which stress abstinence of alcoholic beverages.
Ham was publicly and virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic. He was "a revivalist who considered Jews 'beyond redemption'".