William Bell Riley
| William Bell Riley | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 22, 1861 Greene County, Indiana |
| Died | December 5, 1947 (aged 86) Golden Valley, Minnesota |
| Alma mater | Southern Baptist Theological Seminary |
| School | Baptist, antievolutionism |
William Bell Riley (March 22, 1861 in Greene County, Indiana, USA – December 5, 1947 in Golden Valley, Minnesota) was known as "The Grand Old Man of Fundamentalism." After being educated at normal school in Valparaiso, Indiana, Riley received his teacher's certificate. After teaching in county schools, he attended college in Hanover, Indiana, where he received an A.B. degree in 1885. In 1888 he graduated from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1908, the Southwestern Baptist University of Jackson, Tennessee, conferred upon Riley an honorary D.D. degree. He served several Baptist churches in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois before taking the pastorate at the First Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1897.
In 1878, at the age of 17, Riley publicly professed faith in Christ. He had planned to study law, but shortly after his conversion he felt called to the ministry. He became pastor of the First Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota on March 1, 1897. He resigned after forty-five years but served as pastor emeritus until his death five years later. Riley wrote a number of texts on Christian Evangelism and founded the Northwestern Bible Training School along with an Evangelical Seminary.
Theologically, Riley was a Baptist traditionalist who subscribed to the New Hampshire Confession of Faith of 1833, the most popular Baptist creed of the 19th century. His first major work was an exposition of the Confession and in 1922 he tried to help the fundamentalist faction of the Northern Baptist Convention gain control and reject theological liberalism by convincing the Convention to adopt the Confession as its binding statement of faith.
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