#11 #7. I'd like to know who actually ordained Phelps. It was Rev. B.H. McAlister, a Southern Baptist minister.
Excerpts from The Transformation of Fred Phelps:
In January 1947, Phelps abandoned plans for West Point and enrolled in Bob Jones University, a non-denominational Christian university then located in Cleveland, Tenn. The school offers degrees ranging from two-year associate's degrees to doctoral degrees. The university teaches a literal interpretation of the Bible. In 1983, the Internal Revenue Service revoked the university's tax exemption because it accused the school of practicing racial discrimination. Years later, Phelps renounced the university as "racist."
By the summer of 1947, Fred Phelps had switched his religious denomination to Baptist. He had become zealous, devout, a fiery orator and an eccentric, said the Rev. B.H. McAlister, a Southern Baptist minister who ordained Phelps.
As part of the Rocky Mountain mission assignment in summer 1947, Phelps and two other students from Bob Jones University were to seek out a fundamentalist church, convert non-believers to Christianity and steer the converts to the Baptist church. The three men chose Vernal, a town in northeast Utah about 130 miles east of Salt Lake City. During the day, the trio went door to door seeking converts, then conducted tent revivals at night, preaching on the radio. McAlister was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Vernal at the time.
When it came time for Phelps' ordination, "we put him through the paces because of his young age," McAlister said. "We feared for him because of his youth." Phelps was 17, at least three years younger than most ministers when ordained.
McAlister, who has helped ordain hundreds, described the ordination process: An examination board of 10 to 20 ministers asks a candidate questions about doctrine and scripture. Not everyone passes. Phelps did. He was ordained Sept. 8, 1947, and then returned to Bob Jones University as a Southern Baptist minister.
Today, Nelson and McAlister share Phelps' anti-homosexual sentiments. MONEY QUOTE: But, "I question his wisdom as to his being so zealous," McAlister said.
Despite being ordained as a Southern Baptist minister, Phelps touts himself as a Primitive Baptist preacher and an Old School preacher.(PRIMITIVE AS IN KNUCKLE DRAGGGER) No rules prevent him from switching denominations, said Mark Coppenger, an official with the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, Tenn.
"I was ordained by the First Baptist Church of Vernal, Utah," Phelps says. "There is no such thing as being ordained by the Southern Baptists. You are ordained by the Baptist church. I went to that church, and we liked each other. They baptized me in a mountain stream that was cold and ordained me."
Phelps says he hasn't missed a Sunday preaching lesson since. "So the hunch was good," he said. "If the call was good, it never goes away."
(SOME PEOPLE MISS THEIR CALLING. TOO BAD THAT FRED DIDN'T)
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