William H. Houghton

William Henry "Will" Houghton (June 28, 1887 – June 14, 1947) was an evangelist and the fourth president of Moody Bible Institute, in Chicago. Biographer Wilbur Smith said of him: "Two primary passions possessed the soul of Will H. Houghton: From the beginning of his ministry to the end… evangelism, and the study of the word of God." Houghton was known for his fundamentalist Christianity.

William was born in South Boston, Massachusetts, to John William Houghton and Carrie Maude Grant of Nova Scotia, Canada. William Houghton was converted to Christianity at age 14, during at evangelistic meeting in Lynn, Massachusetts. In June 1914, Houghton married Adelaide Franks and they had two children, Adelaide Maude and Everett Arthur. Adelaide Franks Houghton died two years later, and William Houghton remarried in December 1918 to Elizabeth Andrews. On December 8, 1919, they had a son, Firman Andrews. William Houghton, himself, died of a heart attack in 1947, while still president of MBI.

Initially interested in theatre and active in the Vaudeville Circuit, Houghton became convinced in 1909 to give up drama and, instead, enrolled at the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute, in North Scituate, Rhode Island, but soon left without finishing. He was later awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree, in 1931, by Wheaton College and an honorary Doctor of Law degree by Bob Jones University, in 1942.

Houghton took his first pastorate at the First Baptist Church of Canton, Pennsylvania, in 1915. After two years, Houghton left to pursue evangelistic work throughout New York and Pennsylvania. After a series of revivalistic meetings at a Baptist church in New Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1918, he accepted their offer of the pastorate and stayed until he took a new pastorate at the First Baptist Church of Norristown, Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1920. Houghton then pastored at the First Baptist Tabernacle of Atlanta, from 1925 to 1928, and the Calvary Baptist Church in New York City, the headquarters of the New York Youth Christian Center, from 1930 to 1934. In 1932, he founded the New York Summer School of Theology.

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